We are currently exploring a number of opportunities to present, including with IICA, the Inter American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, with whom we already have a working agreement.
Last month, the UNFCCC held their climate change conference in Bonn. Emerging Ag, who are supporting our structuring of our approach to CoP to ensure we are making the most of the opportunity to attend, provided us with a comprehensive overview of the discussions in Bonn.
What follows is a summary of their observations:
The Bonn Conference was designed to lay the groundwork for COP27 to be held in Egypt. In addition to agriculture, Parties focused on carbon market mechanisms, progress to enhance adaptive capacity to climate change, and the issue of loss and damage.
Developing countries asked for more support under the Convention and progress on climate finance, especially for a financial mechanism to address loss and damage associated with climate change. Developed countries' resistance to advancing on this issue created a political stalemate that postponed several decisions to COP 27.
Before the session, some civil society groups asked to address the conflict of interest, suggesting the adoption of rules to limit private sector engagement that did not find support among Parties.
Agricultural negotiations
- Discussions on the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture progressed very slowly during the sessions. Parties were asked to adopt
Parties finalized the conclusions but could not find an agreement on the draft COP decision in relation to agriculture. The negotiations were tense, with marked disagreements and a focus on procedural aspects.
Conclusions:
There are multiple no-regrets options with benefits for adaptation and mitigation. Approaches to implementing and scaling up of best practices, innovations, and technologies need to include institutional arrangements, partnerships, farmers' empowerment, organization and extension services.
Access to finance, capacity-building, and technology development and transfer are necessary to implement these approaches to further integrate agriculture into existing climate policies such as NDCs and NAPs. Parties strongly disagreed on agroecology and additional mitigation focus.
- Agroecology - The EU pushed for having a formal recognition of agroecology as a primary approach to improve agricultural sustainability, but G77 opposed it since agroecology is a concept without a clear definition under the Convention.
- Focus on mitigation - The EU, US, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway suggested strategies unrelated to adaptation, but G77 opposed it.
Parties found a compromise by referring to adaptation, adaptation co-benefits, and mitigation, which allows keeping adaptation as the primary focus while recognizing separate work on mitigation. In the medium term, this may allow considering the role of agriculture in the context of carbon markets, as informally suggested by some Parties (i.e., New Zealand and the US.)
COP draft decision
Poland and Peru produced an informal note that captures the progress of the discussion. This is not a negotiating text but a simple working document to help resume negotiations at COP 27. The key elements are:
- Positive language on livestock - There is the acknowledgment of the vulnerability of livestock systems to climate change, their high adaptation capacity, and their contribution to food security and nutrition. The note recognizes the opportunity to improve the sustainability of livestock management, including by promoting animal health and enhancing carbon sinks through pastures and grazing. There is no reference to dietary changes and associated mitigation potential.
- Future proposals - Parties broadly agreed that future UNFCCC guidance should promote the implementation of concrete measures at the country level but could not agree on concrete proposals to enhance implementation.
- G77+ China suggested establishing an additional Koronivia Committee to coordinate implementation efforts, while, instead, developed countries suggested a work plan on agriculture to avoid changing the existing UNFCCC institutional framework.
- The informal note mentions both options. The Committee/plan of work should incentivize multi-stakeholder partnerships to enhance climate action in agriculture. Climate finance was only marginally considered in the note with the suggestion that UNFCCC financial bodies should prioritize agriculture.
Egyptian Presidency initiative on agriculture
The Egyptian Presidency shared information on the FAST initiative (Food and Agriculture Towards a Sustainable Transformation) to be launched at COP 27 in collaboration with FAO on the occasion of a possible Adaptation and Agriculture day (TBC likely between 9-12 November.)
The FAST initiative should accelerate the implementation of projects to help strengthen agricultural systems to climate change in the next 5-8 years, possibly up to 2030. Egypt made clear that the initiative has no specific focus on adaptation and aims to mobilize support and finance for climate action in agriculture.
There will be a first meeting of the initiative's steering committee in late July. That Committee will be responsible for organizing the thematic day on agriculture and adaptation at COP 27. GRSB has submitted an outline of no regrets options for cattle production.
Observers and parallel conversations
The importance of agriculture in the UNFCC debate has grown, reflecting the increased public awareness of its impact on global warming and positive contributions to carbon sequestration. The number of side events on food and agricultural topics significantly increased compared to previous negotiating sessions.
Overall, civil society organizations were very critical of the lack of transparency in the negotiation sessions, which often remained close to observers.
In synergy with environmental organizations, the youth movement set up protests on site to advocate against animal agriculture and support agroecology and plant-based diets as one of the primary mitigation strategies.
Few side events covered dietary changes, including fiscal policies to limit animal-sourced food consumption. The protests and side events on these topics had minimal impact on negotiations. Still, some regional groups, such as the EU, seem more likely to bring the topic of sustainable diets into the negotiations.
Other likely thematic workshops might cover agroecology and Nature-Based Solution. Among international organizations, FAO played a crucial role in liaising with country delegations, the Presidency, and other observers.
An FAO pavilion at COP27 is likely, and GRSB will look for opportunities to participate there. CGIAR was quite active in promoting the value of innovation, science, and research to promote resilience and climate action in agriculture. WHO was actively involved in the discussion and noted the importance of the UNFCCC's work on agriculture to prevent malnutrition.
Recommendations for COP 27
Many Parties flagged the need to review the information submitted on future work on agriculture under the UNFCCC. Given the interest shown by some Parties in previous and new submissions, GRSB will liaise with the UNFCCC Secretariat to ask for the possibility of submitting information as a non-accredited organization.
Further engagement with the New Zealand and Australian governments will be helpful to explore the possibility of having a side event or speaking slots in their Pavilions.
In addition to side event opportunities with IICA, we may approach Clim-Eat to participate in activities in their pavilion.
GRSB has approached Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) [an accredited member] and they have agreed to provide a speaking slot at their side event.
