Tag Archive for: Paris 2015

COP21 – Carbon Farming May Figure in Climate Mitigation

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Author: Judith Schwartz

PARIS – Due to an initiative launched by France, there is now an international framework that for the first time brings agricultural soils into climate negotiations. Called “4 per 1000,” this new proposal aims to protect and increase carbon stocks in soil.

The initiative, signed this week by 25 countries including France, Germany, the UK, Mexico and Australia, as well as 75 research and NGO partners, is aimed at combatting climate change by recognizing the ability of soil to act as a sink for greenhouse-gas emissions. The US was not a signatory to the agreement, which occurred parallel to the main climate negotiations.

The “4 per 1000,” which refers to a voluntary pledge of a 0.4 percent annual growth rate in soil carbon content, “is a game-changer”, said Andre Leu, who signed on behalf of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). “I’ve been engaged with climate negotiations since Copenhagen, and until now we couldn’t even get the word agriculture in the agreements.”

Carbon is an important component of soil, representing 58 percent of organic matter. Through photosynthesis, a plant draws down atmospheric carbon to form carbon compounds, or sugars. Some of this is exuded through the roots to feed soil microorganisms. But when soil is exposed to the air, through tillage or the absence of plant cover, the carbon oxidizes to form CO2. The world’s cultivated soils have lost between 50 and 70 percent of their original carbon stores, according to Rattan Lal, director of Ohio State University’s Carbon Management and Sequestration Center.

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IFOAM Organics International: Why the French “4 Per 1000” Initiative?

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France officially launches the “4 per 1000 Initiative” to combat climate change and feed the world through regenerative agriculture.

This video features Stéphane Le Foll, the French Minister of Agriculture and Andre Leu, President of IFOAM Organics International explaining the importance of the French “4 per 1000” Initiative to reverse climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil.

Check out the latest updates on the “4 per 1000” Initiative.

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Ronnie Cummins: A Message of Hope From Paris COP21

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An interview with Ronnie Cummins International Director of the Organic Consumers Association and Regeneration International, from the 2015 UN World Climate Summit. Ronnie explains how consumers and farmers can unite to launch a global regeneration movement.

The French “4 per 1000” Initiative:

As of today, December 3, more than 50 national governments, activist organizations and stakeholder organizations (including the Organic Consumers Association and Mexico affiliate, Via Organica) have signed on to the French government’s “4 Per 1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate” declaration. The declaration emphasizes that agriculture, and agricultural soils in particular, can play a crucial role in reversing global warming and increasing global food security.

Based on a growing body of farming practices and scientific evidence, the French government’s Initiative invites all partners to declare or to implement practical programs for carbon sequestration in soil and for the types of farming methods used to promote it (e.g. agroecology, agroforestry, conservation agriculture and landscape management).

According to Andre Leu, president of IFOAM Organics International, the French Initiative on sequestering atmospheric carbon in soils via regenerative ag practices is “historic, marking the first time that international climate negotiators and stakeholders have recognized the strategic imperative of transforming and regenerating our global food and farming system in order to reverse global warming.”

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Carbon Farming Gets A Nod At Paris Climate Conference

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Author: Alastair Bland

This week, world leaders are hashing out a binding agreement in Paris at the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. And for the first time, they’ve made the capture of carbon in soil a formal part of the global response to the climate crisis.

“This is a game changer because soil carbon is now central to how the world manages climate change. I am stunned,” says André Leu, president of IFOAM — Organics International, an organization that promotes organic agriculture and carbon farming worldwide.

Leu is referring to the United Nations Lima-Paris Action Agenda, a sort of side deal aimed at “robust global action towards low carbon and resilient societies.” On Dec. 1, countries, businesses and NGOs signed on to a series of new commitments under the agenda, including several on agriculture.

Currently, the Earth’s atmosphere contains about 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Eric Toensmeier, a lecturer at Yale and the author of The Carbon Farming Solution, a book due out in February, says the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide levels must be cut to 350 parts per million or lower to curb climate change.

Toensmeier and Leu are among a growing number of environmental advocates who say one of the best opportunities for drawing carbon back to Earth is for farmers and other land managers to try to sequester more carbon in the soil.

Keep Reading on NPR

Sam Kass Wants to Put the Climate on the Menu Before it’s Too Late

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Author: Twilight Greenaway and Michael R. Dimock

As the world prepares for critical climate negotiations in Paris this December, the former White House chef hopes to put food and agriculture on the global climate agenda—and on world leaders’ plates.

Since Sam Kass left his position as assistant White House chef and executive director of the first lady’s “Let’s Move!” campaign late last year, he has had no shortage of things to do. For one, he’s preparing to join the NBC News team as a senior food analyst. But first, Kass is planning some very important meals.

This December, 25,000 delegates from 190 nations will be meeting in Paris for the United Nation’s Conference of Parties or COP 21. The goal is to ensure every nation takes action to keep the average global temperature increase below 2 degrees centigrade by achieving a “binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world.”

“Many who are paying attention are saying these are the most important negotiations of our lifetime,” says Kass, who hopes to bring together the leaders of as many nations as possible over food. But not just any food—he’s planning meals that send a clear message about the crucial role food and agriculture will play in either mitigating climate change, or adding to its snowball effect, in the years ahead.

From the methane produced by livestock and food waste, to the nitrous oxide that escapes from manure and fertilizer, to the carbon dioxide left unabsorbed when rainforests are cut down to make way for cattle and soybeans, food and agriculture add significant quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. And yet, says Kass, they are often under-represented in climate negotiations. But, he adds, “there will be a massive cost to pay if food isn’t in that mix.”

Food Waste and Beyond

Kass’ climate campaign began in September when he and Dan Barber, author of the Third Plate and chef at Blue Hill and the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, prepared an unprecedented meal at the UN for a significant number of world leaders including General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon and French President Francois Hollande, aimed at highlighting the fact that food waste is a major contributor to climate change. The meal included a burger made from vegetable pulp and “French fries” fashioned from starchy corn used to feed cattle.

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Global Alliance on Climate Smart Agriculture: Solution or Mirage?

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Author: Rashmi Mistry

In Paris later this year, global leaders will meet at the Conference of Parties to thrash out a deal to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions and to find a solution to the pressing financial needs of billions of people, smallholder women farmers among them, on the frontline in the fight to adapt to climate change.

One of the solutions put forward to address these challenges is the concept of ‘climate smart agriculture’ – but what is it? And should we be worried?

Recognition of the importance of agriculture and climate change is on the rise

Industrial agriculture is one of the major causes of climate change. Around 25 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally derive from the food system, including from methane from livestock production, deforestation to clear land for agriculture and nitrogen from fertilizer use.

Climate change is also creating havoc in many of the world’s farming systems, and endangers the progress made in the last few years to ensure the right to food for millions of people. Slow, insidious changes in global temperatures and shifting weather patterns, as well as increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are disrupting production and distribution systems.

As a result – there is an increasing interest from both companies and policymakers in finding and promoting forms of agricultural production which can reduce emissions, as well as ways in way agriculture can adapt to changing conditions.

Keep Reading in Common Dreams

The Exxons of Agriculture

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Author: GRAIN

It goes without saying that oil and coal companies should not have a seat at the policy table for decisions on climate change. Their profits depend on business-as-usual and they’ll do everything in their power to undermine meaningful action.

But what about fertiliser companies? They are essentially the oil companies of the food world: the products they get farmers to pump into the soil are the largest source of emissions from farming.1 They, too, have their fortunes wrapped in agribusiness-as-usual and the expanded development of cheap sources of energy, like shale gas.*

Exxon and BP must envy the ease their fertiliser counterparts have had in infiltrating the climate change policy arena. World leaders are about to converge for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in December, but there is only one major intergovernmental initiative that has emerged to deal with climate change and agriculture – and it is controlled by the world’s largest fertiliser companies.

The Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, launched last year at the United Nations (UN) Summit on Climate Change in New York, is the culmination of several years of efforts by the fertiliser lobby to block meaningful action on agriculture and climate change. Of the Alliance’s 29 non-governmental founding members, there are three fertiliser industry lobby groups, two of the world’s largest fertiliser companies (Yara of Norway and Mosaic of the US), and a handful of organisations working directly with fertiliser companies on climate change programmes. Today, 60% of the private sector members of the Alliance still come from the fertiliser industry.2

Read the media release about this report here

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France Backs Soil Carbon Plan Ahead of Climate Summit: Le Foll

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France supports combining food security and carbon sequestration in soils as part of a global agreement to fight climate warming later this year, Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said in an interview.

Linking cuts in greenhouse gases to fertilizing soils is important for developing countries, particularly in Africa, who don’t want to be prevented from producing more food for the sake of climate considerations, Le Foll said. Limits on food and farm production “for them would be a difficult element” to accept in any agreement, he said.

Adapting farming practices to boost organic matter in agricultural soils by 0.4% a year would compensate for global greenhouse gas emissions, according to France’s National Institute for Agronomical Research. Lifting soil fertility contributes to fighting hunger, Le Foll said.

“We could stock the equivalent of the anthropogenic carbon gas produced by humanity today,” Le Foll said. “Storing carbon in the soil is organic matter in the soil, organic matter is fertilizing the soil.”

Keep Reading in Bloomberg

Peasant Agriculture is a True Solution to the Climate Crisis

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Climate disruptions this year have again caused widespread hunger, migration and the worsening of living conditions for millions of rural families, especially women and youth. While small farmers around the world continue to produce the food most people eat, glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, species of plants and animals are disappearing daily, islands and nations are being reclaimed by oceans, soils are eroding and forests igniting, and catastrophic events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis are becoming commonplace. Meanwhile, the global food system imposed on people by Transnational Corporations (TNCs) is both a total failure and one of the main causes of the human-induced climate crisis – dependent on fossil fuels to produce, transform and transport, it is responsible for an estimated 44 to 57% of all global greenhouse emissions1. Instead of nutritious food for the world’s people, TNCs have produced hunger and obesity, land grabs and rural displacement, and a climate crisis they now hope to cash in on with false solutions sold at the United Nations.

Some twenty years since Rio (’92) and Kyoto (’97), governments have met over and over again for their Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). They have continuously failed to protect and advance people’s most fundamental human rights – including the Right to Food – sending delegation upon delegation to climate talks that prioritize private interests over public welfare. Previous agreements and negotiations have moved from compulsory or binding accords to simple pledges that are not even likely to be kept. At the same time, TNCs have secured the political support of co-opted governments to get their interests inserted as bottom-line strategies into the agreements. Carbon markets, so-called “Clean Development Mechanisms” (CDMs), REDD and REDD+, bioenergy and agrofuels, as well as agribusiness’ proposed “climate-smart agriculture” package, are just a few of the misleading proposals now on the table. Instead of solving the problem, these false solutions only serve to worsen them. Instead of capping emissions, they create artificial markets and opportunities for the grossest of polluters to continue polluting and do little to reduce the effects of climate disruptions. By pushing the interests of capitalism and the privatization of nature, TNCs are putting the lives of ordinary people, small-scale farmers, peasants and indigenous communities – who work with nature to secure our livelihoods – into ever greater jeopardy.

Some twenty years since Rio (’92) and Kyoto (’97), governments have met over and over again for their Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). They have continuously failed to protect and advance people’s most fundamental human rights – including the Right to Food – sending delegation upon delegation to climate talks that prioritize private interests over public welfare. Previous agreements and negotiations have moved from compulsory or binding accords to simple pledges that are not even likely to be kept. At the same time, TNCs have secured the political support of co-opted governments to get their interests inserted as bottom-line strategies into the agreements. Carbon markets, so-called “Clean Development Mechanisms” (CDMs), REDD and REDD+, bioenergy and agrofuels, as well as agribusiness’ proposed “climate-smart agriculture” package, are just a few of the misleading proposals now on the table. Instead of solving the problem, these false solutions only serve to worsen them. Instead of capping emissions, they create artificial markets and opportunities for the grossest of polluters to continue polluting and do little to reduce the effects of climate disruptions. By pushing the interests of capitalism and the privatization of nature, TNCs are putting the lives of ordinary people, small-scale farmers, peasants and indigenous communities – who work with nature to secure our livelihoods – into ever greater jeopardy.

Keep Reading on La Via Campesina

Don’t be fooled! Civil society says NO to “Climate Smart Agriculture” and urges decision-makers to support agroecology

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We, the undersigned, belong to civil society organizations including social movements, peasants/farmers organizations and faith-based organizations from around the world. We are working to tackle the impacts of climate change that are already disrupting farming and food systems and threatening the food and nutrition security of millions of individuals. As we move towards COP21 in Paris, we welcome a growing recognition of the urgent need to adapt food systems to a changing climate, and the key role of agroecology within a food and seed sovereignty framework in achieving this, while contributing to mitigation through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

However, despite these promising signals, we share deep concerns about the growing influence and agenda of so-called “Climate-Smart Agriculture” (CSA) and the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA). Climate change is the biggest and the most urgent threat our societies face. We need a radical transformation of our food systems away from an industrial model and its false solutions, and toward food sovereignty, local food systems, and integral agrarian reform in order to achieve the full realization of the human right to adequate food and nutrition. We therefore urge decision-makers at country and UN levels to reject the dangerous rhetoric of Climate-Smart Agriculture.

Climate Smart Agriculture must not be confused with agroecology

Climate Smart Agriculture must not be confused with agroecology. Agroecology is a holistic approach to agriculture, based on principles of ecology as well as food and nutrition security, food sovereignty and food justice which seek to enhance agricultural systems by using and recycling natural resources instead of relying on externally-purchased inputs. It encourages local/national food production by small food producers and family farmers, and is based on techniques that are not delivered from the top-down, but developed from farmers’ traditional knowledge and practices as well as from farmer innovations. This approach is based on farmers’ participation and makes nature a powerful ally in ensuring food and nutrition security, building healthy soils and conserving water. It increases farmers’ incomes and resilience in the face of climate change, while improving biodiversity and crop diversity. It is therefore crucial for all efforts to realize the human right to adequate food and nutrition. Governments must recognise that industrial approaches that degrade soil health and water retention, pollute water systems, poison nature and create dependency on external inputs, impoverish biodiversity and ecosystems are not only harmful and unnecessary, but also deeply misguided for a planet facing hunger, ecological crises and climate change.

Keep Reading on Climate Smart Agriculture Concerns