COP24: The Koronivia 'baby' takes its first steps

She writes:

Born at last year’s summit, the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture finally took its first baby steps at COP24 with its first workshop.

Click here for the World Farmers Organisation’s input to this first workshop, which was drafted by the NFU.

NFU climate change adviser Dr Ceris Jones pictured with SBI chair Emmanuel Dlamini (photo: IISD RS/ Kiara Worth)

Government agriculture negotiators heard from a range of other cross-sectoral bodies in the UN climate change system including those focused on technology, finance, adaptation and capacity building.The Koronivia negotiators were especially interested in how these other bodies could help them with implementing their earlier work on the development of early warning systems and extreme weather contingency planning, the identification of adaptation measures taking into account the diversity of the agricultural systems and the identification and assessment of agricultural practices and technologies to enhance productivity in a sustainable manner.

It was reassuring that all these bodies had done some work on agriculture but everyone in the negotiating room felt that there was greater scope for closer collaboration. The Koronivia group also specifically requested that other financial entities like the Least Developed Countries Fund get involved.

Let’s hope that this is the start of many long-term relationships which, as the negotiators from Uganda and the EU said, enable ‘farmers to benefit from the work’. It was also great to hear the negotiator from Japan talk positively about livestock and the sector’s contribution to food, nutrition and cuisine and the great mitigation potential which it holds.

Next up on the Koronivia agenda, a consultation on methods to assess adaptation and on improved soil carbon, soil health and soil fertility including water management.