Relevance
- GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
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Context
- Recently at the COP26 meeting, 27 countries, including India, have laid out new commitments to make farming more sustainable and less polluting.
Key points
- The ‘Sustainable Agriculture Policy Action Agenda for the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture and Global Action Agenda for Innovation in Agriculture’ was among the highlight action pledges to be clinched by the participating countries at the COP26 of the UNFCCC.
- The countries have committed to invest in the science needed for sustainable agriculture and for protecting food supplies against climate change, laid out in two ‘Action Agendas’.
- UK has announced funding of £500m to support the implementation of the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Roadmap that was launched during the World Leaders Summit.
- Here 28 countries are working together to protect forests while promoting development and trade.
COP26 Glasgow Summit of UNFCC- India’s Commitments
National commitments aligned with this agenda
- Brazil’s plan to scale its ABC+ low carbon farming programme to 72m hectares, saving 1 billion tonnes of emissions by 2030
- Germany’s plans to lower emissions from land use by 25m tonnes by 2030
- The UK’s aim to engage 75% of farmers in low carbon practices by 2030.
A Climate Dividend- India at the COP26 of the UNFCCC
Agricultural reform and innovation
- A new global initiative launched to reach 100 million farmers at the centre of food systems transformation with net zero and nature positive innovations by 2030.
- The Policy Action Agenda for the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture sets out pathways and actions that countries can take to repurpose public policies and support to food and agriculture, to deliver these outcomes and enable a just rural transition¹.
- New UK funding of £38.5m over 2 years to the CGIAR, the world’s leading agricultural science and innovation organisation.
- The CGIAR was formerly called the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
- It aims to create and scale new crops and technologies yielding climate, nature, health, gender and economic impact.
- A new UK initiative to transform climate-resilient food systems through research and innovation.
- The Gilbert Initiative will coordinate investments in evidence generation, technology development and delivery to support a food system that by 2030 feeds 9 billion people with nutritious, safe foods.
COP 26: Key Takeaways
Sustainable production and consumption
- Sainsbury’s, on behalf of the big 5 UK supermarkets, will commit to halving the environmental impact of the average UK shopping basket by 2030 through a new partnership with WWF called basket measures.
Ocean protection
- The UK announced a £6m investment in the World Bank’s PROBLUE as part of its Blue Planet Fund, supporting the development of the blue economy to act as a key driver of growth in small island developing states (SIDS) and coastal least developed countries.
- The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance, a multi-sector collaboration designed to drive investment into coastal natural, hosted a roundtable that saw commitments towards the partnership’s target to secure at least $20m USD.