World farm voices, Mozambique: peasants of the world unite.

by: Natasha Chart

Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 13:33:16 PM PST

Renaldo Chingore João works a 5-7 acre farm with his family. There, they grow maize, beans and vegetables, keeping 15 cows for meat and milk, as well as draft labor. Though it's a small farm, João and his family don't face the world alone.

They're part of a community that's organized itself for advocacy and mutual support, both within Mozambique and the larger global community of peasant farmers.

Smallholder Farmers Speak Out Against Copenhagen

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Dec 19, 2009 at 21:43:26 PM PST

Copenhagen: All Done and Totally Sucky

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Dec 19, 2009 at 17:35:51 PM PST

The Most Recent Copenhagen Draft for Ag

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Dec 18, 2009 at 11:13:32 AM PST

In addition to this, there's the issue of ag offsets, which Annie Shattuck of Food First writes about, saying:

This comes at the same time that radical proposals to subsidize soil carbon storage (likely through 'biochar', RoundUp Ready GM crops and industrial tree plantations) with carbon offsetting schemes made it back into the draft after having been presumed dead. The proposals would allow wealthy countries to buy carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) instead of reducing emissions at home.

The inclusion of agriculture in the CDM is extremely problematic - transaction costs to participate in the program are high, giving structural advantage to large-scale industrial technologies like GM monocultures. Moreover, a recent civil society study of CDM projects found that 75% did not provide any emissions reductions whatsoever.

All in all - with this along with the bombshell dropped yesterday that the U.S. is shooting for a 3 degree Celsius global temperature increase and 550 ppm CO2 - this is very bad. (Developed countries were previously talking about a 2 degree increase, which Africa was calling a death sentence and developing nations were advocating "1.5 to stay alive." And, of course, the science says we need 350 ppm, NOT 550!)

I've heard via Amy Goodman's show Democracy Now that the U.S. is more or less trying to bribe their way into getting what they want by calling for very lax carbon limits and then offering up $100 billion in aid to developing nations. Developing nations all want a stronger agreement BUT with $100 million per year at stake, they also fear that those who give into the U.S. will get the money - and those who don't, won't.

Worldwatch Report: Roadmap to Low-Carbon Energy by 2030

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Dec 17, 2009 at 16:00:00 PM PST

Between 1990 and 2007, world gross domestic product increased 156 percent while global energy demand rose 39 percent, pushing up
global CO2 emissions by 38 percent. Were it not for advances in energy efficiency - gains achieved without aggressive policies - the increase in energy use and associated emissions would have been much greater. Even so, more than half of the energy that we consume does not provide us with useful services, and there is enormous potential for improvement in all sectors of the economy.

In 2007, renewable energy provided more than 18 percent of total final energy supply. Solar energy, wind power, and other renewable technologies have experienced double-digit annual growth rates for more than a decade. The renewable share of additional global power generation (excluding large hydropower) jumped from 5 percent in 2003 to 23 percent in 2008, and this ratio is significantly greater in many individual countries.

A recent study revealed that there is an enormous gap between the nation's most and least efficient states and that by simply closing that gap, up to 30 percent of U.S. electricity consumption could be curtailed, displacing more than 60 percent of the nation's coal-fired generation and dramatically reducing national CO2 emissions.

Below you'll find the press release announcing the publication of this report along with a link to download it.

New International Ag-Climate Alliance Formed

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Dec 17, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PST

Bad News from Copenhagen

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Dec 17, 2009 at 10:25:26 AM PST

The news from a press release I've included below is that Copenhagen is paving the way for carbon offsets (called CDMs or Clean Development Mechanisms in the language of the agreement) that are totally bogus. This is very bad.

Copenhagen Agreement on Agriculture Draft Language

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 17:52:03 PM PST

Copenhagen Agreement on Agriculture Update

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 13:47:39 PM PST

First off, they call for increasing efficiency and productivity in a sustainable manner. This worries me, because "sustainable" has become a very fungible word. In other words, it gets thrown around a lot and applied to things that are NOT sustainable at all. Also, this language reaffirms the idea that yield and efficiency are all that matter. More food! More food! What we need is healthy food and equitable distribution. Yes, we need to have enough for all of us, but we DO have enough for all of us and we still have record numbers of hungry people. And among those who have enough (or too much) to eat, we have epidemic health problems. So clearly, we're missing something there.

Next up, they say they recognize the interests of small and marginal farmers, the rights of indigenous people and traditional knowledge and practices. THAT is awesome. They also plan to take into account the link between agriculture and food security, and they plan to make sure that the agreement to reduce emissions and combat global warming will not adversely affect food security. Cool! There's also an up-for-negotiation point in there recognizing the problem of land degradation. So that one might not make it into the final agreement.

The next point kind of sucks. They have a bit in there about international trade, basically noting that the climate agreement shouldn't mess with international trade. Given that international trade is the cause of so many agricultural problems in the first place, this isn't something I find reassuring. I worry that free trade orthodoxy will mean that nations will be prohibited from enacting meaningful carbon laws and then importing their food from countries with lax, pollution-promoting laws instead.

After that, they make a point that's kind of the meat of the whole agreement. All parties who sign on should work on reducing man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, especially when they can do so while also improving agricultural productivity in a sustainable manner. They may or may not include bits specifying that the efforts to reduce greenhouse gases should also safeguard food security and livelihoods security. That remains to be seen.

My hunch is that the language here is loose enough that the U.S. could sign on and still stick to business as usual while claiming they are trying to improve productivity and sustainability. This also paves the way for the expansion of industrial agriculture into the developing world. Yuck.

Developing Countries Call for Deeper Cuts in Emissions

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Dec 12, 2009 at 11:40:21 AM PST

The U.S has indicated it would support limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, a level that the top UN scientific body, the IPCC, says would effectively warm Africa 3.5 degrees on average - a level of warming the G77 is now calling a "death sentence."

I have to say I agree with Africa on that. The G77 is calling for limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As Annie notes, this has a lot to do with food:

The demand - "1.5 to Stay Alive" - is especially salient in the context of the food crisis. Without significant, genuine, immediate action, the world's food systems, and especially those of Africa, will suffer significant water shortages and crop failure. With over 1 billion hungry people in the world, "1.5 to Stay Alive" is an imperative we cannot afford to underestimate.

In an email to me, Annie also said "Ag is getting fast-tracked and the text on it will be sealed by tonight." In other words, stay tuned for news about agriculture in Copenhagen.

Update from Copenhagen

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Dec 11, 2009 at 22:15:22 PM PST