Outils

Tools

The aim of the set of tools on these pages is to provide knowledge, information and support to various stages of an advocacy campaign focused on the importance of agriculture within climate change negotiations. Click here to access the website. The components of a campaign include:

• Key Messages
• Agriculture & the UNFCCC
• Raising key issues
• Examples

Contributors

The Guide to UNFCCC Negotiations on Agriculture: Toolkit for Communications and Outreach which was published by Farming First, with the support of contributors: the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA).

Key Messages

Key messages for Farming First supporters, farmers’ organizations, agriculture development organizations and negotiators:

1. Now is the time to act. Farmers are experiencing the impacts of climate change, and they need action from policy makers, NGOs, politicians and businesses if they are to adapt and to mitigate.
2. A 2015 agreement should acknowledge the importance of agriculture for food security and livelihoods and the role it can play to help meet global adaptation and mitigation goals.
3. The ‘Zero Draft’ of the 2015 agreement, released in February, includes mentions of both the ‘land sector’ and agriculture. This is a positive development and negotiators should keep agriculture included as the negotiating text evolves.
4. The process set up under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) in June 2014, for submissions and workshops over the next two years, is welcome. It is progress on adaptation specifically. But it is essential to specify how SBSTA outcomes will feed into the ADP discussions so that a global framework for action from 2020 includes agriculture.
5. A 2015 agreement should deploy finance, technical inputs and capacity building to support ambitious actions by farmers and the agricultural sector to achieve food security through adaptation and mitigation.
6. The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) by countries represent a key opportunity to bring agriculture into climate change commitments and activities. Agriculture must be included in the INDCs.
7. Agriculture and food security issues are likely to be central to planning for mitigation (e.g. NAMAs) and adaptation (e.g. NAPAs) in all countries.
8. National policy processes will work best if they combine food security, adaptation and mitigation rather than keeping the three aspects in separate tracks. Integration is needed across landscapes and food supply chains, in order to manage trade-offs effectively, particularly trade-offs between food production and mitigation goals.
9. Financing for both mitigation and adaptation must be part of climate change policies. Recent developments are positive: improvements in the Global Environment Facility’s strategy and an increase in financing stemming from ‘fast start’ finance are helping increase funding towards climate-smart agriculture. But more needs to be done. It is essential that the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) provides specific, stable, and long-term support to adaptation and mitigation in agriculture.
10. There are many existing solutions to some of the known challenges of climate change that can be scaled up. These include improved soil and water management practices, better climate information services, and greater access to agricultural resources among women. Our most important challenge, as farmers and as supporters, is not to invent new practices and approaches, but to share what already works as widely as possible to create global change for the better.