IICA, its 34 Member States and strategic partners from the private sector will install the Home of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas pavilion at COP28, ratifying the sector’s commitment to tackling climate change
San Jose, 23 November 2023 (IICA) – The agrifood sector of the Americas will attend and play a leading role once again in the world’s premier forum for debating and negotiating on the global environmental crisis. At this year’s COP28 in Dubai, the sector will have its own pavilion, installed by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), its 34 Member States and partner organizations from the public and private sectors.
COP28, the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November to 12 December, will feature a pavilion named The Home of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas. For the second consecutive year, the pavilion will host high-level discussions on the role of regional agriculture in mitigation and adaptation efforts.
At COP27, held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022, IICA and its partners installed the pavilion to disseminate information and foster dialogue.
COP28 is an event of worldwide relevance during which the most important country leaders will discuss how to continue advancing towards meeting the climate change mitigation and adaptation goals adopted by the international community in 2015 through the Paris Agreement.
At the Conference of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas, held in October in San Jose, Costa Rica, the ministers formally approved the participation of IICA and its partners at the global event.
On that occasion, ministers and senior officials from the 34 Member States endorsed the work of the agricultural and rural development agency, whose international cooperation agenda includes climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience as one of its priority areas of work.
“The agriculture sector cannot be left out of climate discussions. Across our continent, producers, especially those who are most vulnerable, are witnessing the impact of the environmental crisis on agrifood systems. Agriculture is unique in that it can contribute to climate action, thanks to its capacity to sequester carbon and to its adaptation practices”, explained IICA Director General Manuel Otero.
“Only through collective action will we succeed in tackling climate change. That is why we will raise the voices of the hemisphere’s ministers of Agriculture and production and industrial sectors at COP28”, added Otero.
Greater productivity with fewer resources
The Home of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas will be the main forum at COP28 for disseminating the efforts currently underway to increase productivity with fewer natural resources in the Americas, a region that is key to global food and nutritional security and environmental sustainability.
The sector’s participation at COP28 is crucial given the fact that climate change, compounded by overlapping economic and political crises and wars, has placed food security at the top of the global agenda. The Western Hemisphere plays a key role in this regard, given the fact that it accounts for roughly 28% of the planet’s agrifood exports and boasts an extraordinary wealth of natural resources, whose conservation is decisive in the fight against global warming.
Opportunities for greater sustainability
IICA’s message in Dubai will emphasize the fact that agriculture in the Americas has great opportunities to become more sustainable, productive and resilient, while also strengthening its position as a guarantor of global food security and generator of employment and rural well-being.
In that regard, agrifood systems transformation must be guided by three principles: farmers should be central to all efforts, decisions must be science-based, and agriculture should play a role in climate solutions.
The pavilion at COP28 is a joint effort of IICA and its partners, aimed at generating new international partnerships to fund, accelerate or scale up the implementation of contributions to climate change mitigation and adaptation. It will present actions related to soil health, water management, preservation of biodiversity, restoration of degraded areas and livelihoods, the circular economy, and the measurement and monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Home of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas will raise the voices of ministers and senior officials of agriculture, managers of agrifood companies, representatives of producer organizations and scientists specializing in agriculture and the environment, who are convinced that food production is an activity on which the future of humanity depends, and which must therefore take part in environmental discussions.
More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int