Is India Phasing Out Fossil Fuels Fast Enough To Achieve Its Emission Targets?

Posted on November 4, 2024 by admin

Asia-Pacific, Climate Change, Conferences, COP29, Economy & Trade, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Headlines, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Wind turbines overlooking Vyas Chhatri, traditional architecture of Jasalmer district in Rajasthan. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

NEW DELHI, Nov 4 2024 (IPS) – While India continues to rely heavily on coal, the south Asian economic giant is also aggressively pushing renewable energy production, especially after the costs of renewable energy production have fallen drastically in recent years around the world.

But experts say that India—the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs)—has to face many headwinds for achieving its net zero target by 2070 and before that, reaching the target of a 45 percent reduction in GHG emission intensity by 2030 from 2005 levels.

According to the experts, addressing the gaps in policies and strategies are some of the main measures India needs to take for a rapid transition to renewable energy sources. But most of them believe phasing out fossil fuels such as coal appears to be a daunting task for India given its huge reliance on them. India ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2016, committing to limit the global average temperature rise to below 2°C by the end of the century.

As part of its first Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), India had pledged to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity of its economy by 33–35 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. In August 2022, the Indian government revised its NDCs, raising its ambition to a 45% reduction in GHG emission intensity by 2030 from 2005 levels.

The south Asian country has also pledged to become carbon-neutral or achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070, an announcement made by the Indian government in 2021 during CoP 26 in UK. According to the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, Decarbonisation is the biggest transformation of the global economy of this century.

Coal to Stay ‘For India’s Development’

Presently, the contribution of coal for India’s energy generation is 72 percent and accounts for 65 percent of its fossil fuel CO2 emissions. The contribution of coal for energy generation in India, say the experts, is not going to change anytime soon.

“Coal cannot be removed from India’s energy mix in the next 20 years. We require coal because we need a development-led transition, not a transition-led development,” said Amit Garg, a professor at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad-Gujarat. “We can adopt new technologies and try new ways, but we in India cannot eradicate coal just yet.”

Anjan Kumar Sinha, an energy expert who is the technical director of Intertek, told IPS that energy security in India is currently dependent on coal and would take time for its phasing out given how the country is yet to be ready for a rapid phase-out of coal, which is currently extremely important for India’s energy security.

“In phasing it out, we have to improve flexible operations of coal-based plants for electricity dispatch, especially with increasing levels of renewable energy,” he said.

According to Sinha, coal being an important energy resource which India has, “we need to wash its sins” with a continuous increase in production of renewables. India, Sinha said, “has to save itself… it can’t leave it to the rest of the world.”

India has been hailed for the progress the country has achieved in its clean energy transition in recent years. The Indian government aims to increase non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 GW and source 50 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030.

“[This] progress seems encouraging on several fronts. Today, India stands fourth globally in total renewable capacity, demonstrating a 400 percent growth over the last decade,” notes an article published by researchers of the Bharti Institute of Public Policy at the Indian School of Business.

But, despite this progress, the authors say that India faces a lot of challenges as it still remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

India’s Growth and Green Journey

With India’s economy expected to expand rapidly in the coming years, there will be an increase in demand for resources, and the environmental footprints will also increase. According to the latest World Energy Outlook report of the International Energy Agency (IEA), India’s energy consumption will increase by 30 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050, with carbon emissions from energy use rising by 32 percent and 72 percent in the same period.

If successful in meeting its climate commitments over the next seven years, India could offer a developmental model wherein a country continues to grow and prosper without significantly increasing its energy or carbon footprint. But the path ahead for India’s energy transition is full of significant challenges.

“This is one of the most challenging times for India. We have the challenge of growth, jobs and energy consumption, which we have to balance with environmental considerations,” B V R Subrahmanyam, the CEO of NITI Ayog, India’s top official think tank, was quoted as saying by India’s national daily, The Times of India, on September 11, 2024.

But he has emphasized that fossil fuels will continue to drive the country’s growth. “It is no longer about growth or sustainability, but growth and sustainability,” he was quoted as saying.

Experts also believe that there are hurdles along the road as the country seeks to phase out polluting energy sources.

According to this article published in Outlook magazine on October 30, uncertainties such as low renewable energy (RE) investments in recent years, land availability, high intermittency of renewables, higher costs of panels due to import duties and distribution companies that are tied up in long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) not buying new RE power are some of the major concerns.

“While there has been progress on deployment of electric vehicles in the country, upfront costs and a lack of reliable charging infrastructure pose challenges in scaling up the initiatives… for the industrial sector, fossilized manufacturing capacities will create decarbonisation challenges,” the article says.

Raghav Pachouri, associate director, Low Carbon Pathways and Modelling, Vasudha Foundation, highlighted how storage can play an important role in making energy transition successful.

“The success of the energy transition to renewable energy lies with the integration of storage. Current capacities are limited, and the quantum of requirements is huge.”

Moreover, Pachouri says, infrastructure for electric vehicles remains inadequate, with fewer than 2,000 public charging stations as of 2023.

IPS UN Bureau Report

At COP16, Biodiversity Credits Raising Hopes and Protests

Posted on October 26, 2024 by admin

Active Citizens, Biodiversity, Climate Action, Conferences, COP16, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Global, Headlines, Indigenous Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, TerraViva United Nations

COP16

Indigenous women in Cali hold a protest commodificationof their traditional natural products. Majority of the indigenous organizations participants in the COP have been vocal about their opposition to biodiversitycredits, which they think is a false solution to halt biodiversity loss. Credit:Stella Paul/IPS
COP16 Logo, installed at the conference venue atCali, Colombia. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

CALI, Columbia, Oct 26 2024 (IPS) – At the end of the first week at the 16th Conference of Parties on Biodiversity (COP16), finance emerges as the biggest issue but also shrouded in controversies.

On Saturday, as the COP moved closer to its most crucial phase of negotiations, resource mobilization—listed under Target 19 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF)—took centerstage, with most parties demanding faster action, greater transparency and the adoption of true solutions to halt biodiversity loss.

Biodiversity finance: Expectation vs Reality

On Thursday, October 24, the government of China formally announced that the Kunming Biodiversity Fund—first announced by Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2021—was now fully in operation. The fund promises to contribute USD 220 million over the next 10 years, which would be spent especially to help developing countries in implementation of the KMGBF and achieve its targets, said Huang Runqiu, Minister of Environment and Ecology, China, at a press conference. It wasn’t clear, however, how much of the promised amount had been deposited.

This has been the only news of resource mobilization for global biodiversity conservation received at COP16, as no other donors came forth with any further announcements of new financial pledges or contributions to the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), which was expected to receive USD 400 billion in contribution by now but has only received a paltry USD 250 million. In addition, there were no announcements of the countries reducing their current spending on harmful subsidies that amount to USD 500 billion and cause biodiversity degradation and biodiversity loss.

In absence of new contributions and lack of any concrete progress on reduction of harmful subsidies, the new mechanisms like biodiversity credits to mobilize resources for implementation of the Global Biodiversity Fund is fast gaining traction.

From October 21–24, the COP16 witnessed a flurry of activities centered primarily around biodiversity credits and the building of new pathways to mobilize finance through this means. Experts from both the UN and the private sector were heard at various forums discussing the needs of developing tools and methodologies that would help mobilize new finance through biodiversity credits while also ensuring transparency.

COP16 logo, installed at the conference venue in Cali, Colombia. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Inclusiveness and the Questions

According to a 2023 report by the World Economic Forum, the demand for biodiversity credits could rise to USD 180 billion annually by 2050. The report said that if major companies stepped into the market, the annual demand for biodiversity credits could go to as high as USD 7 billion per year by 2030.

Experts from the UN and a variety of technical people with various backgrounds said that since biodiversity credits are still in their infancy, there will undoubtedly be a lot of scrutiny and criticism. The Biodiversity Credit Alliance is a group that provides guidance for the establishment of a biodiversity credit market. The urgent need, they said, was to develop infrastructure and policies that would help answer those questions and tackle the scrutiny. The first and foremost of them was to help build digital tools and infrastructure that could be used to share and store biodiversity data in a credible and transparent manner.

Nathalie Whitaker, co-founder of Toha Network in New Zealand, a group of nature-based business investors, said that her organization is building digital tools, especially for helping local communities to participate in biodiversity credit programs and access the benefits.

“Once the communities have these tools, they can instantly see what data is being used to pay for the biodiversity credits or even decide the value of the natural sources in their territory. So, they can see what resources are being discussed, what is being valued, how it’s being done and how the whole discussion is moving forward,” Whitaker said.

Fabian Shimdt-Pramov, another speaker at the event, said that the quality of the tools would decide the course and results of a biodiversity credits project.

Shimdt-Pramov, chief business development officer at Biometric Earth, a German company that uses artificial intelligence to build biodiversity analytics tools from different sources such as remote sensing, wildlife cameras, acoustic monitoring, etc.

“If methodology is not correct, if the data is not correct, the system doesn’t work,” he said, emphasizing on the requirement of high-level technological expertise that is needed to get a biodiversity credit project off the ground.

However, when questioned on the cost of buying such high-end technologies and tools, especially by Indigenous communities living in remote areas without any internet connectivity, both speakers appeared to be at a loss for words.

“I have seen in the Amazon a community selling five mahogany trees on the internet, so I am guessing it’s not a big challenge,” Shmidt-Pramov said in a dismissive voice. Whitaker acknowledged that lack of access to digital technology in Indigenous Peoples communities was an issue but had no solutions to propose.

Terence Hay-Edie of Nature ID, UNDP, however, stressed the need to empower the communities with the knowledge and skills that would help them access the tools and be part of a biodiversity credit.

As an example, he cites restoration of river-based biodiversity as a biodiversity credit project where a river is considered to have the same rights as a human being. According to him, if values of credits are counted and traded for restoration of biodiversity around a river, it will require recognition of all these rights that a river has, which is only possible when the community living along the river has full knowledge of what is at stake, what is restored, what value of the restored biodiversity is to be determined and how the pricing of that value will be decided.

“A river can be a legal entity and have a legal ID. Now, can we build some tools and put them in the hands of the community that is doing the restoration to know the details of it? That’s what we are looking at,” Hay-Edie said.

A False Solution?

However, Indigenous peoples organizations at the COP16 were overwhelmingly opposing biodiversity credits, which they called “commodifying nature.”

What are biodiversity credits? It’s basically regenerating biodiversity where it is destroyed and earning money from that. But it doesn’t work that way, according to Souparna Lahiri, senior climate change campaigner at Global Forest Coalition.

“If we talk of a forest, the ecosystem is not just about trees but about every life that thrives in and around it—the rivers, the animals, plants, bees, insects, flowers and all the organisms. Once destroyed, it’s lost forever. And when you regenerate it elsewhere, you can never guarantee that it will be an exact replica of what has been lost. This is why the very concept of biodiversity credit is a destructive idea,” says Lahiri.

Valentina Figuera, also of the Global Forest Coalition, said that while trading carbon credits could work as a tool in carbon change mitigation, it would not be the same in biodiversity.

“In climate change, you can measure the total carbon generated by a forest, for example. But in biodiversity, how do you measure it? What is the mechanism? How do you even value life that thrives there? So, this concept is a straight import from climate change and forcefully imposed in biodiversity, which is nothing but a false solution, so that businesses that cause biodiversity loss can conduct their business as usual.

The Dilemma of Participation

COP16, dubbed the “People’s Cop” by Colombia, the host country, has drawn several hundred representatives of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), especially from across Latin America, including Colombia, Brazil, Panama, Venezuela and Peru. While the Latin American IPLC organizations appeared united in their opposition to biodiversity credits, African organizations seemed to be willing to consider it.

Mmboneni Esther Mathobo of the South African NGO International Institute of Environment said that her organization was in support of biodiversity credits, which could, she said, not only help the community earn money but also motivate them further to preserve biodiversity.

“We are influencing and making sure that our rights are safeguarded and protected in this newly emerging market of bringing biodiversity credits,” said Mathobo.

Currently, Namibia is implementing its first biodiversity carbon credits project in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Known as the Wildlife Credits Scheme, the project is known as a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) that rewards communities for protecting wildlife and biodiversity. Mathobo said that the project in Namibia made her realize that there was a great opportunity for local communities to conserve and restore biodiversity and earn from it.

“We faced many challenges to earn carbon credits because that system was established and created behind our heads. And now we wake up, but we find ourselves sitting with a lot of problems in that market where our communities are not even benefiting. But we believe that with the engagement of the biodiversity alliance, UNDP, we are going to be the ones making sure that whatever happens in the biodiversity credit market, it benefits all our regions and all our communities, as well as safeguarding and protecting our rights,” she said.

“To each their own, if Latin American indigenous communities feel they don’t want to trade natural resources, that’s their right. But in Africa, we have the potential to earn biodiversity credits and we need the money, so we are supporting it,” Mahobo commented when reminded of the opposition of Latin American countries to biodiversity credits.

Source: World Economic Forum Report on Biodiversity Credit

IPS UN Bureau Report

Capacity Building Is Key to Africa’s Digital Sequencing Success Story

Posted on October 22, 2024 by admin

Africa, Biodiversity, Conferences, COP16, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Food Sustainability, Headlines, Natural Resources, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Biodiversity

The International Livestock Research Institute is using genomics to breed livestock suited to local conditions and production systems to meet community needs. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

BULAWAYO, Oct 22 2024 (IPS) – Christian Tiambo has always wished to uplift local farmers’ communities through cutting-edge science.

As climate change wreaked havoc on local agriculture, Tiambo, a livestock scientist at the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health (CTLGH) and at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), focused on conserving and developing livestock that could withstand environmental stress.

Genomics, a Game Changer

Tiambo’s research took an exciting turn when part of his PhD studies was to characterize and establish local poultry populations with interesting resilience potential. Yet, the need for local access to advanced genomic tools was a barrier to fully unlocking this potential.

Today, the power of digital data and sequencing information is transformative. It is driving the discovery of genes and innovation in agriculture through the identification and deep characterization of pathogens in plants and animals. That is helping scientists to breed livestock suited to local conditions and production systems, thereby benefiting local communities that have been custodians of genetic resources for generations.

But there is a catch: Africa, like other parts of the global south, is a genetic goldmine but has not fully capitalized on the digital sequencing information (DSI) derived from its genetic heritage. DSI is a tool that provides information for the precise identification of living organisms and allows the development of diagnosis tools and technologies for conservation in animals and plants. Besides, DSI is also used in investigating the relationships within and between species and in plant and animal breeding to predict their breeding value and potential contribution to their future generations.

Tiambo said DSI can be used to adjust the genotypes and produce animals with desired traits, adapted to local conditions but which have higher productivity.

A promising innovation has been the development of surrogate technologies in poultry, small ruminants, cattle or pigs—giving opportunity to local and locally adapted and resilient breeds to carry and disseminate semen from improved breeds in challenging environments.

“Farmers would not need to keep requesting inseminators and semen from outside their village,” Tiambo explained, noting that this shift could dramatically improve livestock breeding, dissemination of elite genetics, boost food security and alleviate poverty in remote rural areas of Africa.

Global cooperation among stakeholders of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is key to establishing international guidelines on benefit-sharing from animal genetics resources and their associated information, including DSI.

Christian Tiambo, a livestock scientist at the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health. Credit: ILRI

Using genetics and associated traditional knowledge includes adapting specific livestock to specific environments. This contributes to the development of improved and elite tropical animal breeds with particular traits that meet community needs to improve livelihoods, he said.

“Local livestock is not just for food but is our heritage, culture and social value,” said Tiambo, adding that conserving livestock is conserving local culture, social ethics and inclusion, with gender aspects being considered. For example, the Muturu cattle and the Bakosi cattle in Nigeria and Cameroon are animals used in dowry, The Bamileke cattle remain sacred and maintain the ecosystem of sacred forest in part of the western highlands of Cameroon.

“I have never seen any traditional ceremony done with exotic chicken in any African village,” he said.

Genetics and DSI, according to Tiambo, are “game changers” in breeding livestock with desired traits faster. What used to take five to seven years or more, he says, can now be done in just three or four cycles with the help of genomics.

ILRI has been working with the Roslin Institute, the Kenyan Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization and collaborating with the African Union-InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), the National Biosafety Authority, farmer communities, and National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in Africa and Southeast Asia in the conservation and development of improved local chicken using stem cell technologies.

Bridging the Capacity Gap

DSI needs infrastructure and human resources. “A lot of infrastructure, equipment and skills are coming from outside Africa, but how can we also generate DSI and use it locally?” Tiambo asked. He worries that without developing local capacity to harness DSI, “a lot of helicopter research will still be happening in Africa where people fly in, just pick what they want, fly out, and no scientists in Africa are involved in generating and using DSI.”

Technologically advanced countries have often exploited these genetic resources, developing commercial products and services without clear mechanisms for sharing the monetary and non-monetary benefits with local communities as ethics and common sense would require—an injustice that needs urgent correction.

The use of DSI on genetic resources is one of the four goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in 2022 with the aim of stopping global biodiversity loss by 2030.

ThankGod Ebenezer, bioinformatician and co-founder of the African BioGenome Project, argues that Africa must seize this moment to build and strengthen local capacity to produce and use DSI from genetic resources.

“The establishment of a benefit-sharing mechanism for DSI is a first step in the right direction and Africa needs to maximise even this first step by putting in a framework to generate and make use of DSI locally,” Ebenezer told IPS, explaining that Africa needs to be able to do genetic sequencing on the ground with local scientists having the capacity to translate and use it.

The Africa BioGenome Project, of which Tiambo is also a founding member, is a continental biodiversity conservation initiative that has laid out a roadmap for how Africa can benefit from DSI and the planned multilateral fund.

“The main benefit comes from being able to use DSI and ultimately share it with the global community in line with the national and international rules and regulations,” said Ebenezer. “Because if you cannot use DSI yourself, you will always feel like a supplier, like someone who gets crude oil from the ground and asks someone else to add value to it and gets several products.”

“The multilateral fund is key,” Ebenezer stresses. “If someone converts DSI into revenue, for instance, they’re only looking at paying 1% back into the fund. Is that enough for the communities that hold this biodiversity?”

At COP16 in Colombia (Oct 21-Nov 1, 2024), world leaders will discuss mechanisms for fair and equitable sharing of DSI benefits, a critical step for Africa and other biodiversity-rich regions. For example, Africa hosts eight of the 34 biodiversity hotspots in the world, according to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

“In terms of the negotiation, we would like the DSI fund to be approved so that it’s ready for implementation because this is an implementation COP,” Susana Muhamad, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia and COP16 President-designate, told a press briefing ahead of COP16.

“We would like the decision of the parties to give the COP the teeth for implementation. One is the DSI,” Muhamad said.

Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, is hopeful that COP16 will operationalize the multilateral mechanism for the sharing of benefits from the use of digital sequencing information in genetic research.

“We are going to look at that. And I think it’s a very complex term and issue, but it is ultimately about how those industries, sectors and companies that use digital sequence information on genetic resources that are often located in the global south, but not exclusively, how they use it and how they pay for using it,” said Schomaker, noting that COP15 agreed to establish a multilateral mechanism and a Fund for DSI.

The fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources is one of the three objectives of the CDB, including the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use of its components. Target 18 of the CBD seeks to reduce harmful incentives by at least USD 500 billion per year by 2030, money that could be channelled to halting biodiversity loss.

The World Resources Institute (WRI), in a position paper, has urged COP16 to provide more finance and incentives to support nature and biodiversity goals.

There is currently a USD 700 billion gap between annual funding for nature and what’s needed by 2030 to protect and restore ecosystems, the WRI said, noting that “many of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems—and biggest carbon sinks—are in developing countries that cannot save them without far more financial support.”

The WRI commented that bringing in more private sector finance will require incentives, which can come from policy and regulation as well as market-based strategies to make investments in nature more attractive.

But this should not substitute for shifting harmful subsidies and delivering international public finance to the countries that need it most, WRI argued.

As the world scrambles to stop biodiversity loss by 2030, the upcoming COP16 discussions could be pivotal in ensuring that Africa finally benefits from its own genetic wealth.

IPS UN Bureau Report

The Future of Food Security Lies Beyond COP29’s Negotiation Tables

Posted on October 21, 2024 by admin

Biodiversity, Climate Action, Climate Change, Climate Change Justice, Conferences, COP29, Economy & Trade, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Food Sustainability, Global, Green Economy, Headlines, Natural Resources, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

ASUNCION, Paraguay, Oct 21 2024 (IPS) – Climate change has thrown our food systems into chaos. Extreme weather events and dramatic climate variations are hammering food production and supply chains across the world. As global leaders gear up for COP29, there’s plenty of buzz about climate action. But can we really expect these slow-moving, bureaucratic negotiations to deliver tangible and swift results to decarbonize and insulate our agri-food systems? Most likely not. But do not despair. While the COP29 talks unfold, crucial climate solutions for transforming food systems are already taking root on the ground.

Jesus Quintana

In the exhilarating, Oscar-winning movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, the leading characters are surrounded by overwhelming chaos and complexity. Yet, within this confusion, small actions, and the determination of people behind them, spark powerful change. In stunning similarity, the climate crisis —particularly in food systems— feels like an insurmountable challenge with everything, droughts, floods, storms, hunger and other interlocked crises, striking everywhere, and all at once.

Urgent action is needed. Where do we turn? COP 29 will likely be stuck in slow-paced discussions. Meanwhile, transformative solutions are taking shape on the ground. Across the globe, communities, farmers, sponsors and innovators are quietly building resilience in their food systems, demonstrating that true progress often emerges from the margins, not the center of chaos. Just like in the metaphoric film, finding purpose and action amid disorder is where meaningful change begins.

Grassroots solutions for climate-resilient food systems

While world leaders talk and officials try to turn decisions into workable policies, local communities are already acting. Across the Global South, where the effects of climate change are being felt most acutely, smallholder farmers and grassroots organizations are implementing innovative practices that build resilience to climate shocks.

In regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America, agroecology is gaining traction as a powerful tool for both mitigating and adapting to climate change. This farming approach, which draws on traditional knowledge and emphasizes sustainable, low-emission methods, is helping communities adapt to changing weather patterns while improving food security. Agroecology promotes biodiversity, improves soil health, and reduces dependency on chemical inputs, all of which enhance the resilience of agricultural systems to climate impacts and helps decarbonize them.

The private sector’s role in transforming food systems

Community movements and local governments are playing a vital role, but the private sector is also increasingly driving climate solutions in food systems. Market forces are pushing companies to innovate in ways that reduce agriculture’s climate footprint. The plant-based food revolution is an example of how the private sector is responding to the need for more sustainable diets that lower greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, alternative protein food-tech startups are leading the way towards a sustainable and tasty food future. These unconventional substitutes for traditional livestock farming offer a glimpse of how innovation can drive systemic changes in food production.

In addition to product innovation, there is growing corporate investment in regenerative agriculture—a practice that rebuilds soil health, captures carbon, and improves biodiversity. Large food companies, driven by consumer demand for sustainable products, are making commitments to source ingredients from regenerative farms, contributing to both climate mitigation and long-term food security.

Climate finance outside the COP processes

One of the most significant barriers to transforming food systems in the face of climate change is the lack of adequate financing. While COPs have made important commitments, such as the creation of the Green Climate Fund, the flow of funds has been slow and insufficient to meet the needs of vulnerable communities. In response, philanthropy and private finance are stepping in.

Some patrons and foundations are funding initiatives that help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change, while impact investors are supporting agri-tech innovations that boost productivity in a sustainable way. These efforts, although outside the COP framework, are critical in scaling climate-resilient food systems and achieving global net-zero targets.

Real solutions are happening now

While COP29 will no doubt produce important global agreements, the truth is that many of the solutions to the climate crisis—especially when it comes to food—are already in motion. Farmers, local communities, philanthropies and private companies are building a food system that is more resilient, sustainable, and low-carbon.

Global leaders must take notice. Yes, we need ambitious targets and international commitments. But we also need to support and scale the grassroots movements and private-sector innovations that are already leading the way. Real food security in a climate-challenged world will not be achieved through top-down solutions alone—it will come from empowering those on the frontlines.

As COP29 approaches, let’s not lose sight of what is happening beyond the negotiation tables. The future of food security depends on action today, led by those who can’t afford to wait.

Jesus Quintana is Senior Advisor on Sustainable Food Systems and former Director General, CIAT

IPS UN Bureau

Civil Society Fights Against Budget Cuts Amid Calls for “Aid” Reform

Posted on October 16, 2024 by admin

Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Climate Change, Conferences, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Financial Crisis, Global, Headlines, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Sarah Strack is Forus Director

“Woman crosses a local business in the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal” (Both Nomads)

NEW YORK, Oct 16 2024 (IPS) – Multiple conflicts, the climate emergency and other crises are destabilising many parts of the world and intensifying the strain on the resources needed to finance the global sustainable development agenda. Amid these challenges, data from 2023, shows that Official Development Assistance (ODA) reached a record-breaking US$223.7 billion, up from US$211 billion the previous year, according to Eurodad.

However, if one looks beyond the mere figures, worrying trends are emerging. Major donors like Germany and France are reducing their development budget and several countries are already announcing cuts for 2025.

This trend has prompted debate over the direction and quality of global aid, especially at a time when ODA is more crucial than ever in addressing global crises.

In France, with the campaign #StopàlabaisseAPD (#StoptheODACuts), NGOs are mobilising against further reductions in the 2025 budget, warning that such cuts could undermine international solidarity efforts and hit hardest those who are already left behind.

Coordination SUD, a coalition of 180 French NGOs, is raising the alarm over the potential impact of these cuts, which follow a 13% reduction in 2024, and which is seeing ODA funds slashed again by over 20% in 2025, as per the finance bill presented this Thursday

The first victims of this measure will be the most vulnerable populations. “ODA enables local and international NGOs to work daily with and alongside the most fragile communities,” reminds Olivier Bruyeron, President of Coordination SUD.

“Official development assistance has been used as a political football over recent years,” says Bond, the national platform of NGOs in the UK.

As a national civil society platform, they work to ensure UK aid reaches the communities “that need it most”.

“ODA is being used as a geopolitical tool with national interests in focus, when it should be a mechanism for redistributive justice,” said Alex Farley of Bond in a recent global event during the Summit of the Future hosted by the global civil society network Forus.

This debate is part of a larger global conversation on the future of ODA.

While the traditional 0.7% Gross National Income (GNI) target remains a key benchmark for donor countries, experts argue that ODA must evolve to better address the real needs of recipient communities, particularly in the Global South. As Oyebisi Oluseyi of the Nigerian Network of NGOs (NNNGO) points out, “While this target remains important, it’s no longer enough.”

Critics are calling for a redefinition of ODA that shifts powers toward recipient countries and communities. Zia ur Rehman, Coordinator of the Asia Development Alliance – a regional platform of NGOs, emphasizes the need for local actors to have more say in how funds are used.

Providing a perspective from the Pacific Islands, Emeline Siale from the civil society regional coalition PIANGO, echoes the need for local actors to play a leading role in ODA decision-making, “not merely as participants but as leaders”.

“Community participation itself is a healing process, and it’s become a central topic in many civil society discussions,” Siale explains.

As key international summits on development financing approach, the future of ODA—and its ability to meet the needs of the most vulnerable—hangs in the balance.

“The upcoming Fourth United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development presents a key opportunity for the development community to align with development effectiveness principles, rather than allowing them to be further diluted. Now, more than ever, civil society must play its role, shifting power and pushing for a new global governance of international aid that is more representative, democratic, inclusive, and transparent,” says civil society leader in Burkina Faso Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule and President of Forus, a global civil society network representing over 24,000 NGOs across the globe.

IPS UN Bureau

IPBES Calls for Holistic Solutions, Transformative Change in Tackling Biodiversity Loss

Posted on October 11, 2024 by admin

Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conferences, Conservation, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Food Sustainability, Global, Headlines, Health, Natural Resources, TerraViva United Nations

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is key to food security and nutrition. IPBES has warned that loss of biodiversity is accelerating around the world, with 1 million animal and plant species threatened with extinction. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

BULAWAYO, Oct 11 2024 (IPS) – A holistic approach and transformative change of systems are needed to tackle biodiversity loss and to put the world on a sustainable path, an assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has recommended.

The world is facing an interconnected crisis of unprecedented biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and environmental degradation that can no longer be tackled through fragmented and piecemeal solutions, a forthcoming assessment by IPBES will show, calling for holistic approaches instead.

IPBES is set to launch two scientific assessments, the Nexus Assessment and Transformative Change Assessment, in December 2024, which recommend holistic solutions to tackling the connected and converging crises of biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change because’ “siloed” approaches are proving unsuccessful.’

In addition, the assessment calls for urgent “transformative change” by intergovernmental bodies, private sector organizations and civil society to respond to the nature and climate crises.

IPBES is an intergovernmental organization established to improve the interface between science and policy on issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The historic IPBES Global Assessment Report of 2019 found that meeting global sustainability targets for 2030 and beyond requires a fundamental, system-wide reorganization, including new paradigms.

IPBES Head of Communications, Rob Spaull, said the assessments represent the best science evidence for critical action to tackle biodiversity loss available to policymakers.

“This is the most ambitious science report we have done because these five issues by themselves are complex and this assessment pulls them together,” Spaull said in a pre-report launch media briefing this week.

The Nexus Assessment identifies important trade-offs and opportunities within the multi-dimensional polycrisis: To what extent do efforts to address one crisis add to others? And which policy options and actions would produce the greatest benefits across the board? The report will offer an unprecedented range of responses to move decisions and actions beyond single-issue silos. The report was produced over three years by 101 experts in 42 countries.

“Global crises in biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change often intensify each other when addressed separately and should therefore be tackled together,” said Paula Harrison, co-chair of the IPBES Nexus Assessment report, in a statement.

“The Nexus Assessment is among the most ambitious work ever undertaken by the IPBES community, offering an unprecedented range of response options to move decisions and actions beyond single issue silos.”

The Transformative Change Assessment looks at the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, determinants of transformative change and options for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. The report also assesses the determinants of transformative change, the biggest obstacles it faces and how it occurs. It also identifies achievable options to foster, accelerate and maintain transformative change towards a sustainable world and the steps to achieve global visions for transformative change.

A statement by IPBES notes that the Transformative Change Report will provide decision-makers, including policymakers, with “the best available evidence, analysis and options for actions leading to transformative change and build an understanding of the implications of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss for achieving the Paris Climate Agreement, global biodiversity targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the Sustainable Development Goals and other major international development objectives.”

The 11th session of the IPBES Plenary, the first ever to take place in Africa from December 10 to 16, will discuss and approve the reports. IPBES represents nearly 150 governments and seeks to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Spaull said the assessments underline the need to find holistic solutions to addressing biodiversity loss.

“The assessments are looking at how when you try and fix one part of the system you have unintended consequences in other parts of the system; for instance, in many countries there is a big push to plant trees to mitigate climate change and for carbon sequestration and with (unintended) consequences for biodiversity. For example, planting one kind of tree may be damaging to the ecology or water supply and also have an impact on health, so it means there is a need to find a balance.”

He said the reports also highlight responding to issues simultaneously, which is also the emphasis on meeting the SDGs, which have to be addressed systematically rather than in silos.

“For example, there has been a big increase in the volume of food production in past decades and an increase in caloric output that has helped global health but on the other hand, this has resulted in biodiversity loss because the massive food production has been done through intensive agriculture methods that deplete water and have massive gas emissions,” said Spaull.

Furthermore, IPBES has influenced and shaped national and international biodiversity policy through providing policymakers with clear, scientifically based recommendations and helping governments make informed decisions about conservation, sustainable development, and environmental protection.

Through its assessments, IPBES highlights the interconnectedness of biodiversity, human health, economic stability, and environmental sustainability, making it a critical player in the global response to the biodiversity crisis.

Spaull noted that IPBES work has been instrumental in informing progress assessments on biodiversity-related SDGs.

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