Joint activities to address climate change can have a bigger impact than individual efforts, the Director General of IICA has explained to the ministers of agriculture of the Americas.
San Jose, Costa Rica, September 24, 2014 (IICA). According to the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), agriculture in the Americas has the opportunity to participate in joint activities to tackle climate change at the hemispheric and global levels.
The initiatives in question, which have emerged in the last four years, are designed to enable the agricultural sector to reduce its impact and adapt to climate change without negative consequences for productivity, the Director General of IICA, Víctor M. Villalobos, has explained in a technical note to the ministers of agriculture of the hemisphere.
“The challenge is daunting and will call for sustained collaborative efforts to reduce risk, enhance resilience and avoid severe negative consequences for food and nutrition security, employment, economic development and poverty reduction,” the document states.
Several countries in the Americas are already involved in these joint efforts, but the technical note calls for agriculture to play a bigger role in the international discussions and the alternatives for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
“Participation in these initiatives will allow the countries to see how plans and actions at the national level help to solve the global problem, and identify allies, discover synergies and increase the impact of their individual actions by linking them with others,” the Director General of IICA pointed out.
The document goes on to say that uniting behind these joint initiatives would make it possible to pool the expertise and resources required to promote solutions to climate change.
• Alliance on Climate Smart-Agriculture (ACSA). To be launched this month at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit.
• Agriculture Initiative of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC): The countries in the hemisphere already involved are Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and the U.S.
• Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA): the countries participating are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and the U.S.
• Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 (TFA 2020): only the U.S. is involved so far.
• Bonn Challenge on Forests, Climate Change and Biodiversity: Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador and the U.S. are taking part.
• Twenty by Twenty Initiative: launched to support the Bonn Challenge in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“It is worth investigating each one of these opportunities further, assessing whether they are aligned with national and sectoral priorities, and determining whether membership in each is appropriate to the sovereign interests of each country,” concludes the document sent by IICA to the ministers of agriculture of the Americas.
For further information:
miguel.garcia@iica.int
Technical Note: The hemisphere’s agricultural sector can take part in collective efforts to tackle climate change
