BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - Farmers are among the first victims of climate change as they rely on the weather and the environment in its entirety for their production and livelihoods. But until the last climate meeting in Bonn in November 2017, agriculture had been missing from the decisions of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP23 decision on agriculture, also known as the Koronivia Decision on Agriculture, which took five years of discussions to reach, is a turning point for small-holder farmers. It indeed provides hope for farmers and processors in developing economies as it will deliver meaningful action on adaptation to adverse effects of climate change on agriculture. “Agriculture is now being looked at as a sustainable development issue,” said Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). “We look at climate change not just as a scientific issue but it is an agricultural issue; it affects livelihoods of the people, it’s a human rights issue”. Climate vulnerabilities across value-chain commodities affect farmers. The financial and technological needs of farmers to adapt are therefore as critical as the mitigation technics to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the agricultural sector. However, Parties and observers to the climate talks now have two years to work on bold actions needed in agriculture before more specific ones are agreed upon in 2020. African civil society and partners believe it is now time to evaluate how the UNFCCC can provide ways for farmers and agro-processors to adapt to climate change, increase their resilience with technology transfer, information dissemination, leverage finance and capacity building. At the ongoing Bonn Climate Talks, CUTS International and PACJA jointly convened a group of agriculture and climate experts, working across Africa, to reflect on the challenging road towards advancing decisions on the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture.During the event, the panelists brought greater focus on integrating African agriculture sector challenges into the joint work. The panel included Mithika, Martial Bernoux of the Food & Agriculture Organization, Catherine Mungai from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security as well as George Wamukoya, Expert & Consultant on Climate Change and Agriculture. They explored how developing countries can take the process forward to effectively deal with the impacts of climate change on their agriculture. Mithika observed the need to inspire a bottom-up approach in the discus to get local communities and farmer groups engaged in the process. “In the next couple of months, we’ll like to mobilize communities at the local level because we want to make this very practical,” he said. As an observer, CUTS International has submitted proposals to the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, which explore the socio-economic and food security dimensions of climate change in developing countries’ agricultural sector. According to the non-profit NGO, the concerns and needed related to agriculture and food security “must be heeded by all Partners by agreeing to bold actions that support developing countries and LDCs in…

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - After five days of Bonn Climate Talks, several conversations and issues have emerged, both pleasing and disappointing, depending on interest. For the Global Climate Action Network, the organisers of the Climate Action Summit (GCAS) taking place later in September in San Francisco, they believe there is strong evidence of how cities, states, regions, businesses and investors are taking climate ambition to the next level, helping to build momentum for a successful outcome at COP 24, later in December. Specifically, 11 new commitments from Mahindra, among India’s largest business houses, push the number of major global companies with science-based targets to over 400. Speaking to delegates and journalists at the ongoing talks in Bonn, Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer of the Mahindra Group announced that business had taken an important step forward, saying that in total, 13 of its companies have now committed to cut their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals by signing-up to a science-based target.Anand Mahindra, Mahindra Group Chairman said, “There is remarkable congruity between the goals of the Paris Agreement, the Indian Government, and businesses like the Mahindra Group. India, like the Agreement, is driven by a strong belief at the highest political level that pursuing environmental stability is the only way forward.” And welcoming this development, Summit Co-Chair and top UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinosa said, “At COP24 in Katowice, the world has much to accomplish to ensure that the Paris Agreement delivers the desired result, which is to keep climate change within manageable limits. Thankfully, the revolutionary progress underway in the ‘real world’ economy, which will descend on California in September, will be instrumental to helping make Poland a success.” The briefing heard that, to date, over 700 leading businesses around the world have made strategic climate commitments through the “We Mean Business coalition’s Take Action campaign,” collectively representing 2.62 gigatons of emissions, which is equivalent to the total annual emissions of India. Mahindra’s commitment falls under the second of the five challenges – Inclusive Economic Growth – and means that so far 400 companies have positively reacted to this particular “call to action,” which aims to sign on 500 companies by the conclusion of the summit in September. In addition to adding critical momentum to the COP24 negotiations in Poland this December – when governments of the world will meet to signal their readiness to enhance ambition – the September summit in San Francisco will build momentum for a strong outcome at the Climate Summit convened by UN Secretary-General AntónioGuterres in 2019 and to elevate climate action plans – Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – by 2020. Nick Nuttall, Global Climate Action Summit Communications Director said 2018 is crucial for global leaders to step up climate action, and set the stage for the fast and full implementation of the Paris Agreement.The Global Climate Summit will be hosted by the Governor of California, Jerry Brown; the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action, Michael Bloomberg; the Chairman…

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - Agriculture is the mainstay of most developing country economies. Ironically, they are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts through extreme weather events such as drought, floods, landslides, storm surge, and soil erosion, affecting their predominantly rain-fed agricultural productivity and production.In consideration of this vulnerability of agricultural systems to climate change, developing party negotiators had been pushing for it to be considered as a stand-alone work programme at the negotiating table.And the push finally paid off at COP 23 where decision 4/CP.23 on the "Koronivia joint work on agriculture" was adopted, paving way for issues related to Agriculture to be addressed taking into consideration the vulnerabilities of agriculture to climate change and approaches to addressing food security.However, while this was a milestone, African civil society groups still want more ambition on Agriculture considering its importance to African countries in relation to adaptation, as most countries depend on agriculture for livelihood.“Noting the significance of Agriculture in Africa, the decision on Agriculture during UNFCCC-COP 23 was a big milestone,” said Mithika Mwenda, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) Secretary General. “We caution our African governments however, to urgently ensure that there is a joint work plan for Agriculture in ensuring that it receives the required means of implementation.”According to Mithika, further attention should be paid to the type of Agriculture being promoted, saying Africa is not interested in industrial agriculture as practiced by developed countries but rather, promoting resilience of smallholder farmers.“Our interest is to promote resilience to Agriculture, the context in Africa is how do we support that smallholder farmer, that pastoralist whose cows are dying due to drought every time, so we are talking about; how do we now change that, so it’s important that we look at it from this context,” explained Mwenda at the on-going SB48 Climate Talks in Bonn.In fact, the African civil society is linking agriculture to loss and damage, another long-standing issue that developing parties have been pushing at the negotiating table.The argument is that developing countries and Africa, in particular, continues to suffer enormous economic losses in billions of dollars as a result of climate change impacts. Coupled with un-costed social losses due to climate induced displacement of persons triggering conflicts, the African group is dismayed to keep hearing that the answer to loss and damage is insurance—a concept which they believe is a far-fetched dream in Africa.“Insurance works out in developed countries but not in developing countries especially in Africa, where the concept is hardly understood,” said Richard Kimbowa of Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development.Kimbowa says Africa “needs a predictable and easy to understand financing approach for loss and damage,” adding that severity of climate change impacts are not the “normal adapt and move on.”He explained that it is for this reason that the loss and damage mechanism is being pushed to address such losses that have become more severe for communities o easily cope.Closely connected to Agriculture and loss and damage, is gender.It is worth noting that…

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - The demand to tackle conflict of interest within the UNFCCC has over the years been raised by several actors including governments and civil society. However, to date, progress has been slow, notably, due to some cosy relationships formed between politics and the fossil fuel sector lobbyists. It is for this reason that a global coalition of civil society groups is calling for a strong conflict of interest policy for the UNFCCC to decisively deal with the challenge. The coalition, supported by the European Parliament has released a report highlighting revolving doors between the fossil fuel industry and high level politicians, ministers, regulators, and advisors. According to the study, titled “Revolving doors and the fossil fuel industry,” carried out in 13 European countries, finds that failure to deal with conflict of interest by the EU is due to cosy relationships built up with the fossil fuel sector over the years, and calls for the adoption of a strong conflict of interest policy that would avoid the disproportionate influence of the fossil fuel industry on the international climate change negotiations. “There is a revolving door between politics and the fossil fuel lobby all across Europe,” said Max Andersson, Member of the European Parliament, at the Bonn Climate Talks. “It’s not just a handful of cases—it is systematic. The fossil fuel industry has an enormous economic interest in delaying climate action and the revolving door between politics and the fossils fuel lobby is a serious cause for alarm.” According to Andersson, to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep global warming to as close as 1.5 degrees as possible, there is need to clamp down on conflict of interest to stop coal, gas and oil from leaving “their dirty fingerprints over our climate policy.” He says European governments should support the call for a common sense conflict of interest policy so that the next COP can deliver an outcome that will put the world on the road towards a climate in balance. And adding his voice to the debate, Augustine Njamshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), believes fossil fuel lobbyists have both a direct and indirect influence on climate policy. Njamshi says the lack of ambition from developed parties in terms of emission cuts as well as provision of finance for developing parties is a result of bad influence from big polluters. “For instance, in my opinion, delayed climate action, in particular, climate finance for African countries, is indirectly linked to big polluter influence,” said Njamshi. “They have a lot to lose if money is made available for countries to carry out their climate actions because their businesses depend on the current state of affairs.” Meanwhile, Pascoe Sabido of Corporate Europe Observatory argued for strong advocacy to win the battle against big polluters having a field day at the UNFCCC negotiations.“Strong advocacy and policy on conflict of interest should be adopted or else, the interests of fossil fuel sector will continue to have…