130 Nations Want Food, Agriculture In Climate Plans

More than 130 countries agreed to prioritise food and agriculture in their national climate plans at COP28 in Dubai Friday in a move hailed by observers despite fears over its silence on the role of fossil fuels.

Food systems are estimated to be responsible for roughly a third of human-made greenhouse gases, but are increasingly threatened by global warming and biodiversity loss.

A total of 134 countries who produce 70 percent of the food eaten worldwide signed the declaration, summit hosts the United Arab Emirates said.

Iranian delegates walked out of UN climate talks in the United Arab Emirates on Friday in protest over the presence of Israeli representatives, state media reported.

The Iranian side considered Israel’s presence at COP28 ‘as contrary to the goals and guidelines of the conference and, in protest, it left the conference venue’, said energy minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian, who headed the Iranian delegation, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.

At the conference, the UAE’s climate change minister Mariam Almheiri said, ‘There is no path to achieving the goals of the Paris climate agreement and keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach that does not urgently address the interactions between food systems, agriculture and climate.’

The declaration said that countries will strengthen efforts to integrate food systems into their emissions-cutting plans.

Nations would also pursue efforts to support farmers and other vulnerable food producers, including through increased funding, more infrastructure and developing early warning systems, it added.

It also emphasised the importance of restoring land, changing away from greenhouse-gas emitting agricultural practices and reducing food loss. 

The United States, European Union, China and Brazil were among the countries to sign the declaration.

The 134 nations are home to 5.7 billion people and represent more than three quarters of all greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system—or 25 percent of total emissions worldwide, the COP28 statement said.

The US think-tank World Resources Institute praised the announcement.

‘This declaration is the moment when food truly comes of age in the climate process, sending a powerful signal to the nations of the world that we can only keep the 1.5 degree goal in sight if we act fast,’ said the group’s CEO Ani Dasgupta.

However Patty Fong, of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, said the declaration not directly referencing fossil fuels was a ‘glaring omission’.

‘The declaration doesn’t set out how governments will tackle food emissions, and makes no reference to fossil fuels, despite food systems accounting for at least 15 percent of fossil fuels burned each year—equivalent to the emissions of all EU countries and Russia combined,’ she said.

Sustainability group IPES-Food also criticised what it said was vague language and missing concrete actions or targets.

There was ‘no commitment to shift to healthy, sustainable, diets nor reducing overconsumption of industrially produced meat,’ the group said.

IRNA news agency had said late Thursday that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi would not take part in the talks and Mehrabian would instead attend the summit.

Delegates from nearly 200 countries are under pressure to step up efforts to limit global warming at COP28, but the Israel-Hamas conflict now in its eighth week is casting a shadow over the summit.

UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan had invited Raisi to attend COP28 during talks with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in June, IRNA said.

But the Iranian president had decided not to attend ‘due to the invitation of the Zionist regime (Israel) officials’, the news agency said.

In a phone call with his UAE counterpart, Amir-Abdollahian said ‘the presence... of Israel in this meeting deserves serious consideration’ in light of its alleged ‘war crimes and genocide’.

The World Bank will ‘operate’ an ambitious new climate change fund, but donors and recipients will likely control how the money is actually spent, the head of the development lender said Friday.

More than $400 million has been pledged initially to the new ‘loss and damage’ fund for countries impacted by climate change since it was approved by nations attending the UN’s COP 28 climate summit in Dubai on Thursday.

The amount so far falls well short of the $100 billion developing nations say are needed to meet the costs of changing climate, but more pledges are expected in coming days.

‘The reality is the bank is currently not planning to play the role of allocating the money,’ World Bank President Ajay Banga told an event at the summit in Dubai.

‘That will be done by a governing board that needs to be created, that should have representation from the donor countries as well as the recipient countries,’ he added.

The World Bank will play a more limited role, managing the day-to-day operations of the fund, Banga explained.

‘Our job is like a trustee: We run it, we operate it, we hope to make sure the money goes the right places—because we know how to do that,’ he said, adding that the fund was still in its early stages.

The loss and damage fund has been hailed as a positive start to this year’s COP summit in the United Arab Emirates, which has been billed as the largest summit to date, with more than 140 world leaders due to speak on Friday and Saturday.  

Climate finance has been a key sticking point, with wealthy nations most responsible for emissions not delivering on promises to support the vulnerable states who are worst affected but least responsible for global warming.

On Friday, Banga said the new loss and damage fund would initially look to help finance ‘technical assistance and analytics,’ for countries impacted by climate change.

‘If this gets done well, sometime next year is when you’ll start seeing money actually be put out to help countries on the ground,’ he added.