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Series on global Food Security

Severe heatwaves in India – challenges to global food security?

Credit: Mooganic @ Flickr.com

India has broken all previous known record temperatures and it has occured far earlier than previous years with the country already experiencing multiple heatwaves since March and we have not even entered the peak summer months yet. In the next series of blogs I want to explore the current trends in food security and how the current state of global politics and the ever worsening impacts of climate change are pushing global food security ever further into the danger zone.

Temperatures in India have peaked at a record 49 Degrees Celsius and this bodes terribly for the future of wheat harvest in India. According to news pieces such as the Atlantic, India has been lucky that the majority of the Wheat harvest has been collected already so there is still a surplus of grain this year, however as a protective measure the Indian government is still halting wheat exports which may have a significant impact on global wheat supplies as it is the second largest exporter in the world.

What these series of heatwaves are showing is that this is likely going to be the norm carrying forward and if the heat waves come even sooner next year there is a very real possibility that the wheat crop could suffer severe heat stress before the wheat actually forms and wheat havrests could be terrible. This trend highlights that not enough is being done to curb human impact on climate change and that our continued use of fossil fuels is likely to lead us to a path far exceeding 1.5 degrees of global warming.

Ofcourse there are some critics who say India is in part a major contributer to this and that they are a major user of coal to generate power so, the heatwaves in a sense is their own doing. This is not a fair judgement in my opinion as the DW news channel has pointed out Indians per capita still have a far smaller carbon footprint than their western counterparts.

Regardless, this years heatwaves are likely a small taste of what is to come and Asia and the world must start looking at immediate actions that can be taken to mitigate loss to harvest and secure global food security under the new reality of a more inhospitable planet.

Sources:

References

Bonasia, C., 2022. India Halts Wheat Exports to Protect Food Security as Southeast Asia Faces Deadly Heat Wave – The Energy Mix. [online] The Energy Mix. Available at: <https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/05/16/india-halts-wheat-exports-to-protect-food-security-as-southeast-asia-faces-deadly-heat-wave/> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

DW News, 2022. India swelters in severe, unusually early heat wave, worsened by climate change. Available at: <https://youtu.be/IRGG6i_kirA> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Hrishikesh, S. and Sebastian, M., 2022. Delhi suffers at 49C as heatwave sweeps India. [online] BBC News. Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61242341> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Meyer, R., 2022. Wheat Can’t Catch a Break Right Now. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: <https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/05/india-pakistan-heatwave-wheat-economic-costs/629753/> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

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Key issues raised at the IFIAD 2021 conference

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This past Wednesday marked the occasion of the annual IFIAD conference which discusses recent development in the Agri food sector both at home and abroad. This was my first time attending this conference and I was very impressed with the lignup of speakers assembled. Among those was Pippa Hackett the Irish Minister for Land Use and Biodiversity who gave the opening speach for the conference.

This years conference identified some key issues which have to be addressed and voiced to world leaders at the upcoming COP26 conference of states. The science is now clear with 99% confidence that climate change is being driven by human activity (Lynas, 2021). Humanity is standing on the precipise of runaway climate change and the minutes are counting down to the point of no return.

Humanity must drastically reduce its emissions and change the way society functions and peoples lifestyles must change. However, outside the energy sector the elephant in the room no one wants to discuss is our food systems and the precariousnes of the global food chains we rely on to provide food on our tables from all seasons year round. At the IFIAD conference it was pointed out that this years COP26 must provide the stage for a conversation on how humanity plans to address food security to prepare it for the end of the decade and how we can rapidly adapt to a new method of Climate Smart Agriculture that is both productive and non industrialy intensive on our planet. These are critical issues but not enough people are aware of the issue and progress on solutions is slow.

“My worry is wether the Food systems summit was tranformative enough, countries tend to shy away from political issues and governments like to take the easy route of depending on technological advancements” this was the view expressed by Director of Strategy and advocacy for learning at Concern World Wide, Connell Foley. I agree with his sentaments that the world seems all to sure in techonology being the answer to our problems and hanging on the whim that techonological innovations will save us from Climate disaster. This view will lead us no where and thats two fold for the global Agri food sector where countries like Argentina and Brazil want to lobby the publishing of a recent report to dilute the evidence that eating less meat is necessary to reduce our emissions.

The IFIAD conference also discussed certain polarisations and lack of consensus at the food systems summit. Some countries and actors at the summit held dialouges but it was unclear where they went and further alienated groups by only involving techocrats. The case of polarisation was further carried by Tom Arnold – the Irish governments special envoy for food systems. Who observed that some countries even refused to attend the summit which poses the question how do we carry the partnerships and promises made at the food systems summit forward and involve those who did not attend?

This leads us to one of the biggest concerns raise at the conference, the issue of trust. How are we to trust politicians will do what is necessary or that this COP will be any different from the previous 25. When politicians have broken peoples trust so many times and failed to take responsibilty for the situation we are in how are we to expect anything different going forward? The panel of IFIAD speakers came to a consensus that the only way to repair this trust is through involving ground level actors, farmers, teachers, the youth these are the groups that should be front stage at the COP26 conference and every event. Letting these people be heard and involving them in decisions at every level is the only solution moving forward.

The IFIAD conference was refreshing from my perspective as it was good to see professionals who deeply care and work for the good of the Agri food system point out the shortcomings and realities of events like the food systems summit, which when observed objectively seems like it has the solution to all our problems and will fix the mess we are in. To add to the discussion some issues I would have liked to see discussed are the neccessity for legaly binding targets at conferences like COP and I believe there is a need for conferences and panels to include people from opposing sides as this way each side is forced to communicate their grieviances and is put in a position where they have to answer eachother or their silence answers for them. I say this as it was the case with Lauren MacDonald a climate activist who last week at the TED countdown summit in Edinburgh called out Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden on his blatant greenwashing when he trumpeted about Shells efforts to address cliamte change, and rightly told him “we will never forget what he has done and should be ashamed of himself”.

I hope you enjoy my views and opinions on the IFIAD conference and recent developments leading up to COP26 and hope to see you soon for more discussions!

SOURCES

Lynas, M., Houlton, B. Z., & Perry, S. (2021). Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 16(11), 114005. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/10/15/news/we-will-never-forget-what-you-have-done-climate-activist-slams-shell-ceo-ted-panel

Climate Refugees

Credit: Cristina Lue – unsplash.com

Because of the war in Ukraine we have seen 6.8 million Ukrainians flee into Europe (ODP, 2022) and we have seen the logistical and social problems the EU has faced in managing the refugees. These refugees seem likely to stay in the EU for an indefinite period and require their host countries to provide shelter, food, and potentially work while they stay. The EU like much of the world is already facing a massive housing crises and an unsustainable cost of living as the gap between inflation and low wages grows. At current the system we live in is buckling under the pressure of a regional war and late stage capitalism. One frightening reality that is looming in the not so distant future is how the worsening and more frequent environmental disastors caused by global warming will affect human migration. With every summer experiencing record breaking heatwaves, harvest are having to be cut earlier and producing less yield in some instances the heatwaves have been so severe crops have outright failed and withered. Alongisde this ther are increasing major flash floods which are also causing crop failure. Such as we have seen this week in pakistan with a death toll in the thousands and crops being washed away.

For more than 70 days now China has been struck by an extreme heatwave, which has began to take its toll on infreastrucure as the 7th largest river in the world has dried up and nuclear plants that use it for cooling and cities and towns that need water to be purified are all failing (Seidel, 2022). The other major issue is the food shortages that will follow. China has a population of 1.4 billion. What happens when their government can no longer provide for them and people decide to start migrating for areas less affected by climate change. Which, in the most likely scenario will be Europe. Europe itself however has also been experiencing repeated record breaking heatwaves in almost every country but notably Portugal, France, Spain and the UK and Greece have seen the worst droughts in 500 years (Newburger, 2022).

credit: Ninno Jackjr – Unsplash.com

Europe is struggling to deal with the climate crises even when being positioned as the area to be least affected. The reality is that Europe is not going to fare much better than the rest of the world. But people who will be hit the hardest first will most likely come from developing countries from the African continent or from South-East Asia. These people will have no choice but to leave their countries as the ability to produce their own food dissappears and this will be exacerbated by squeezes on the global food supply and as such poorer countries will probably not even be able to afford to import food to meet their population needs anymore. Europe and other more secure nations will be tasked with dealing with these people who have nowhere to go. What is most critical now before the situation deteriorates further and becomes untenable is that the UN and countries around the world enact a legal status and rights to climate refugees and lay out the groundwork to ensure their human rights are preserved and that they know what legal rights and protections they are entiteld to. At present the UN has made efforts to establish an agreed international definition for what constitutes as a climate refugee, which can be found on their site. However, countries need to take the innitiative to make these legal binding to ensure when the time comes something has been done to create a credible fair system as it is expected by 2050 their might be over 1.2 billion climate refugees (Zurich, 2022).

References

Baloch, S. (2022). Pakistan declares floods a ‘climate catastrophe’ as death toll tops 1,000. the Guardian. Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/28/pakistans-south-braces-for-deluge-as-death-toll-from-floods-tops-1000.

Newburger, E. (2022). Europe is experiencing its worst drought in at least 500 years. CNBC. Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/23/europe-drought-worst-in-at-least-500-years-eu-report.html.

OPD. (2022). Situation Ukraine Refugee Situation. Data.unhcr.org. Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine.

Seidel, J. (2022). Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/extreme-china-heatwave-could-lead-to-global-chaos-and-food-shortages/D3FVWMBGHJQD355FDM5R43MG4I/.

Zurich.com. (2022). Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Cclimate%20refugees%E2%80%9D%20has,disruption.%E2%80%9D%20But%20the%20extent%20of.

Fishing and food security

Fishing to feed the world

The most recent report by the FAO on the state of world fisheries, has touted the importance of fishing to help achieve SDG2 – ZERO Hunger. Accordingly 1kg of Tuna production only takes about 1.1kg of feed compared to beef where 1kg take 5-12kg of feed (Fitt, 2022). On paper this all seems good and seems to indicate that we should be consuming more fish, but the issue is that at present we are overfishing the majority of wild fish and fisheries and this is due to very measures to ensure fishing is being properly regulated and managed as in reality illegal fishing fleets run rampant and take fish away from small communities (Bartlett, 2022).

If we are to transform fishing into a sustainable and lucrative sector, all countries and the international bodies and governments need to do more to protect small fisheries and local fishermen as 90% of fishing employees worldwide are small scale (UN, 2022). More needs to be done to properly secure the rights of the small fisheries and communities as at present their governments do not give them the proper safeguards to defend their waters legally and physically. Small fisheries are underfunded, underepresented and subject to pollution and environmental damage from governments or big companies polluting water sources (FAO, 2022) (UN, 2022).

If communities and small scale fisheries have the right frame work and support they can achieve multiple functions. Firstly feed a growing global population, with a protein source that has a relatively low GHG emissions factor. Small fisheries are likely to better manage and conserve their territorial waters so environmental protection and conservation would increase. It would help towards closing the gender gap and supporting equality as at present women make up half the fishing workforce but have almost no representation and they suffered most loss due to the Covid-19 pandemic (FAO, 2022).

References

Bartlett, K., 2022. Fishy Business: Report Details Chinese Fleet’s Illegal Operations in West Africa. [online] VOA. Available at: <https://www.voanews.com/a/fishy-business-report-details-chinese-fleet-s-illegal-operations-in-west-africa-/6519387.html#:~:text=China%20is%20the%20world’s%20biggest,NGO%2C%20the%20Environmental%20Justice%20Foundation.> [Accessed 16 July 2022].

Fao.org. 2022. COVID-19, a crisis like no other. [online] Available at: <https://www.fao.org/3/cc0461en/online/sofia/2022/covid-crisis-fisheries-aquaculture.html> [Accessed 16 July 2022].

Fitt, E., 2022. FAO calls for ‘blue transformation’ as seafood production swells. [online] Eco-Business. Available at: <https://www.eco-business.com/news/fao-calls-for-blue-transformation-as-seafood-production-swells/> [Accessed 16 July 2022].

Press.un.org. 2022. Voices of Small Fisheries Undervalued, Overlooked in Global Food Systems, Speakers at Lisbon Dialogue Stress amid Calls to Curb Illegal Practices, Overfishing | UN Press. [online] Available at: <https://press.un.org/en/2022/sea2150.doc.htm> [Accessed 16 July 2022].

Botanical Education Extinction – opinion piece

source: PIXABAY user chemwifi

A recent study has cautioned that the rate of plant scientists is rapidly declining and furthermore the general population has become disconnected and ignorant of plants and how they play an important role in our existence and balance of the planet eco system. Students and people in general now know less about plants than previous generations. Plants are not given the importance and credit they deserve in society and education. Plants are crucial to solving climate change, fedding ourselves, eco system balance and bio diversity yet most professions and studies exclude or neglect teaching people how plants factor into their profession or sector.

The paper (Stroud et al, 2022) recommends that plants should be treated as an integral part of every profession and trade from veterinary to engineering, medicina and even social and political science. Plants education needs to reflect their importance to our society and not be treated as a niche subject. On top of this evaluations and reports should be carried out periodically to assess the state of education and plant teaching.

If we are to tackle climate change and change human perceptions about sustianability, diets and the environment everyone should have a solid grasp of plants and especially their local eco system and native species. If we dont tackle this issue we risk letting it spiral out of control and having a scarce shortage of people understanding anything about plants and invasive species, extinction, pest problems and all manner of issues could be exacerbated due to knwoledge that will be lost. Humans are become more and more urbanised but we have to ensure this doesn’t lead to humanity becoming completly disconnected from nature.

SOURCES

Stroud, S., Fennell, M., Mitchley, J., Lydon, S., Peacock, J., and Bacon, K.L., 2022. The botanical education extinction and the fall of plant awareness. Ecology and Evolution, 12 (7).

https://pixabay.com/images/id-6930311/

Food Miles – An inflated issue?

Source: user- terimakasih0 Pixabay.com

A recent study was published in the nature food journal which estimates that the global food transportation networks emissions are 3.5-7.5 times higher than previously estimated and that we should move production closer to population centers and a more plant based diet adopted, especially in wealthy countries.

A recent news article coverings this publishing has made headlines and there has been discussions on wether the publishing was breakthrough or has taken some liberties. After delving deeper into the article, and the news piece, the conclusion seems to be that the title of the research has inflated the importance of the issue relative to the actual findings. While impressive in its efforts to use new data and methods, the research has overestimated food miles due to some assumptions and decisions made over the course of the study according to a researcher Ulrich Kreidenweis, who was not involved with the process.

From my own research into this topic I would tend to agree that majority consensus still favours that food miles are one of the lowest sources of emissions and changing our diets to a predominantly plant based one would reduce emissions by a substantially bigger margin. (Weber and matthews, 2008) found that food miles are responsible for a total of 15% of emissions and that red meat is 150% times more carbon intensive that chicken or fish. Thus simply removing red meat from the diet or reducing it to once a week would do more to lower emissions from the global food chain than if everyone transitioned to only buying locally sourced food.

This issue with articles that try to shift the focus from “What” food you eat to “Where” the food comes from is it dilutes the importance of greening our diets and when there is so much information being thrown at people about reducing their carbon footprint it can get all too confusing and leave people defeated or prioritising the wrong things. for example this BBC article (Allen, 2021) begins its discussion with touting the heavy carbon footprint of food carried by air freight. Despite the fact that air freight account for only 0.16% of food miles according to (Ritchie, 2020). The BBc article later does admit that air freight is reserved for high value extremely perishable goods, which most likely is not something the everyday consumer would buy. But, the point remains that most people will only read the title and first few paragraphs of articles which is enstilling the wrong message to the public. (Adetunji, 2022) Is an example of a article about the recent publishing which takes great liberties to bend the results of the research to over dramatize the impact of transportation of food to the total GHG emissions from the global food chain. By using big numbers like “36% of emissions from freight were cause by fruit and vegtable transport” it provides a very confusing message to consumers as to wether they should stop buying produce sourced from abroad. But this can have dire impacts for micro nutrients and the variety and health of peoples diets. Tackling issues in the global food chain is about reducing emissions, improving efficiency. But, it is also about ensuring equal access to nutritious food that can help us achieve SDG 2 – Zero Hunger and make sure noone is suffering from malnutrition and deficits of micro nutrients.

People can make a larger difference globally, if they focus on fiding alternatives to meat products and dairy, Especially red meat and substituting them with a diversified diet of fruits vegetables other greens and then a balanced amount of protein and other macro nutrient sources.

References

Adetunji, J., 2022. The world’s affluent must start eating local food to tackle the climate crisis, new research shows. [online] The Conversation. Available at: <https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-affluent-must-start-eating-local-food-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-new-research-shows-185410> [Accessed 22 June 2022].

Allen, P., 2021. The facts about food miles | BBC Good Food. [online] Bbcgoodfood.com. Available at: <https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/facts-about-food-miles> [Accessed 22 June 2022].

Li, M., Jia, N., Lenzen, M., Malik, A., Wei, L., Jin, Y. and Raubenheimer, D., 2022. Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions. Nature Food,.

Ritchie, H., 2020. Very little of global food is transported by air; this greatly reduces the climate benefits of eating local. [online] Our World in Data. Available at: <https://ourworldindata.org/food-transport-by-mode#:~:text=Transporting%20food%20by%20plane%20can,miles%20are%20from%20air%20travel.&text=People%20often%20think%20that%20eating,to%20reduce%20our%20carbon%20footprint.> [Accessed 22 June 2022].

Tandon, A., 2022. ‘Food miles’ have larger climate impact than thought, study suggests – Carbon Brief. [online] Carbon Brief. Available at: <https://www.carbonbrief.org/food-miles-have-larger-climate-impact-than-thought-study-suggests/> [Accessed 22 June 2022].

Weber, C. and Matthews, H., 2008. Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States. Environmental Science &amp; Technology, 42(10), pp.3508-3513.

Series on global food security: our reality after the covid-19 pandemic.

The impact of the Ukraine – Russia war on global food security.

Credit: Frank Keillor Flickr.com Source: https://flic.kr/p/8HuREw

Since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic we have seen that one of the major fallouts of lockdowns has been the disturbance of global supply chains. Every economic sector on the planet has been impacted by this unprecedented stop in the movement of goods during 2020. As a result there has been a major delay and shortage of materials globally which we have not yet recovered from. One major supply chain is the global food supply, which as a result of the pandemic has seen a recession in progress. Many researches claim that much of the work done over the last decade in alleviating food insecurity and poverty has been undone and is now in a downward trend as a result. You can read more about food security and Covid-19 in the article by (Mardones et al, 2020)

In this series of blogs I will be looking at how further development globally, from climate change to international geopolitics are having major impacts on global food security and how in my opinion it seems we are heading towards more food insecurity. Which will as usual, impact the poorest and most vulnerable groups on the planet predominantly. I hope to cover major world events and also educate and give my opinions on two countries which I will be studying for my masters thesis. Those being Cambodia and Bangladesh which are two countries that are highly suceptible to the effects of climate change and the majority of their poor and impoverished who are subsistence farmers and are likely to be those worse impacted by negative trends in global food security.

Today we are going to look at the impact the Russian invasion of Ukraine has had on global wheat supplies. Ukraine and Russia together account for nearly a third of global supplies in wheat, sunflower and rapeseed oil. In addition Russia and Belarus are major global exporters of potash which is crucial for fertilizing in the middle east and developing countries in the middle east. Ukraine is reported to have 22 million tonnes of Wheat in storage but the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea has reduced the export of these supplies which are predominantly needed by extremly poor countries in the world. Their food security is high sensitive and any disruption to their supplies can quickly lead to food shortages. (Euronews, 2022).

The situation has become so precarious that the united Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres has pleaded for Russia to negotiate a lifting of the blockade and trying to mitigate a deal by getting western nations to drop some trade sanctions which are crucial to global food supply. Even UN food Chief David Beasley has called out Russian president Vladimir Putin asking him if he has a heart and if he does to consider the impact preventing wheat exports is having on the most vulnerable and desitute countries on the planet (Skynews, 2022).

From my reviewing of these recent events this seems like a foreshadowing of the possible future that awaits the world. In the event we don’t drastically curb our green house gas emissions countries are likely to become more protective of their food supplies and this trend of growing food poverty will increase. There seem to be growing trends of the breakdown of globalization and democratic backsliding globally, what this means for global food security in my eyes is a new dynamic and organisation of geo politics. One where countries are focused on regional spheres and conflicts like we are seeing in Ukraine where one dominant power lords over the weaker neighbouring countries creating a system of dependence. Under this scenario it seems likely that international efforts to reduce global food poverty will be stymied. The most vulnerable and underdeveloped countries will regress and the progress made over the last two decades will be replaced with something of a clientelistic system of regionalism and protectionism which will lead to the poorest being left to bare the brunt of the negative impacts. I think now more than ever an effort has to be made to increase international cooperation and investment in programs and innitatives that amplify the voices of the meek, impoverished and subdued. Only by involving those most impacted in the discussion and decision making process can we make sure they eventually have the power and tools necessary to be self reliant and less suceptible to the fallout of the vainglorious decisions made by despot mad men of richer countries.

Sources:

References

Al Jazeera, 2022. Food crisis fears: War drives up cost of wheat globally. Available at: <https://youtu.be/hfQKEI5FhEc> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Limb, L. and Nichols, M., 2022. Ukraine invasion could trigger global food crisis, UN chief warns. [online] euronews.com. Available at: <https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/05/19/ukraine-invasion-could-trigger-global-food-crisis-un-chief-warns> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Mardones, F., Rich, K., Boden, L., Moreno-Switt, A., Caipo, M., Zimin-Veselkoff, N., Alateeqi, A. and Baltenweck, I., 2020. The COVID-19 Pandemic and Global Food Security. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 7.

Mauldin, W., 2022. U.N. Seeks to Ease Russian Blockade of Ukraine Grain Shipping to Avert Food Shortages. [online] WallstreetJournal. Available at: <https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-seeks-to-ease-russian-blockade-of-ukraine-grain-shipping-to-avert-food-shortages-11652717161> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Swinnen, J. and McDermott, J., 2020. COVID-19 and global food security. [online] Available at: <https://www.ifpri.org/publication/covid-19-and-global-food-security> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Whiteside, P., 2022. Ukraine war: How Putin’s invasion is causing a worldwide food crisis – and what can be done. [online] Sky News. Available at: <https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-how-putins-invasion-is-causing-a-worldwide-food-crisis-and-what-can-be-done-12616824> [Accessed 20 May 2022].

Covid 19 – Building back greener – oppertunities seized/lost.

Credit: Michael Gubi http://<a data-flickr-embed=”true” data-footer=”true” h

The covid-19 pandemic is one of the most serious crisies faced by humanity at least in the last 50 years. It has had an impact on every country and individual in the world and the initial outbreak left our globalized world at a standstill and nearly 5.5 million people dead with nearly 300 million people infected globally to date. Now in 2022, 2 years after the initial outbreak we have developed vaccines and tried to create a system to manage the spread of the virus and yet we are currently in the midst of the second biggest rise in cases since the initial surge thanks to the emergence of new more transmissable variants.

In this time we have heard pledges from governments around the world to do their best to protect us and bring and end to the pandemic with the promise to emerge from it with a new social and economic model. Different governments have had different rhetoric and slogans for this such as, “build back better” “The green recovery” and “The brand new deal” . The premise of these is similar in that the governments want to take this slowdown and halt to society and the way of life as we know it as a chance to make changes to the social and economic structures of our lives to one that is more fair, resilient and able to address climate change.

Bodies such as the UN have published Covid-19 responses and platforms which aim to guide and instruct how to seize oppertunities provided by the pandemic in line with the SDG’s and achieving them. The OECD has also created a platform to measure and monitor all the pledges and promises by the OECD member countries and if they are on track to meeting climate goals and delivering the better future promised.

When assessing the impact of the pandemic on society we can see that it has unequally impacted different sectors of society and is more severe in undeveloped countries. One small positive impact that happened was that global emissions dropped during the initial lockdown by about 5% and this was all as result the halt in ground transport, commercial flights and economic slowdown. However this was short lived and now emissions have rebounded faster than expected and seem to be growing faster than ever which is not in line with the recovery pledges. It seems women have been impacted worse by the pandemic as they have been forced to take on unpaid care work and being the main frontline workers in healthcare (UN, 2021). Poorer countries have also not been able to take many of the same precautions offered to developed countries such as, social distancing as people in developing countries tend to have far more people in one household. In adition simple practices such as hand washing are not readily available due to lack of running clean water.

When looking at the realities of the pandemic recovery so far the green recovery is falling far shorter of what was promised. The OECD states that its 44 countries and the European Union pledged a total of 677Bn US Dollars which have had a positive impact and will contribute to building back greener. However, the majority of this is to be used on energy production and transport which is good as its a large emitter of GHG emissions but it is worrying that there is almost no or very little dedicated to agriculture, forestry, biodiversity and waste and recycling which is going to be a huge issue with the increase of meidcal waste and PPE waste such as face masks. What makes this pledge seem ever more insignificant is that the total pledged recovery spedning is 3200Bn USD and the OECD claims 320Bn of that will have negative or mixed impacts to a green recovery. This you can argue will actually reduce the efficiency of the green pledge to 347Bn Dollars.

Not to make this blog post too long I will summarise that the Covid-19 Pandemic has given us the chance to pivot the trajectory of humanity to one that is more fair, just and sustainable. However, so far country pledges and politicians have not delivered a green recovery but rather are hastily rushing to try get us back to living the way we were before. Vaccine rollouts have been unfair to the global south who have been denied the right to patents to produce their own vaccines in favor of profit. The workfore has battled for the right to work from home and the possibility of a 4 day work week seems like a reality but this is not accesible to people in developing countries who do not have sufficient internet and electornic access to work and learn from home. The pandemic is still far from over though so there is still oppertunities for society to demand more from its governments and demand a green just recovery.

OECD – How Green are COVID recovery measures

References

BBC News. 2022. Climate change: Carbon emissions show rapid rebound after Covid dip. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59148520> [Accessed 4 January 2022].

Le Quéré, C., Jackson, R., Jones, M., Smith, A., Abernethy, S., Andrew, R., De-Gol, A., Willis, D., Shan, Y., Canadell, J., Friedlingstein, P., Creutzig, F. and Peters, G., 2020. Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement. Nature Climate Change, 10(7), pp.647-653.

OECD. 2022. Focus on green recovery. [online] Available at: <https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/themes/green-recovery> [Accessed 4 January 2022].

OECD. 2022. Gender-relevance of policies in the OECD Green Recovery Database. [online] Available at: <https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/gender-relevance-of-policies-in-the-oecd-green-recovery-database-e6a03378/> [Accessed 4 January 2022].

OECD. 2022. The Annual Climate Action Monitor. [online] Available at: <https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/the-annual-climate-action-monitor-5bcb405c/#section-d1e242> [Accessed 4 January 2022].

Un.org. 2022. Everyone Included: Social Impact of COVID-19 | DISD. [online] Available at: <https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/everyone-included-covid-19.html> [Accessed 4 January 2022].

Outcome of COP26

Paris Agreement: Article 6, a COP26 sucess story or another loophole for polluters?

“Boris Johnson launch of COP26” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Writen by Bozhidar Tsvetkov, MScCCAFS student – affiliated with the Ryan Institute at NUI Galway.

For the past 6 years since the creation of the Paris climate agreement one issue that has prevented the finalisation of the guidelines for the full implementation of the agreement was article 6 relating to Carbon Markets. Their is no current consensus on the efficacy or potency of Carbon trading in meeting global CO2 reductions currently. Some argue they only provide a means for polluters to continue pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and that carbon credits over value the actual net benefit provided to curbing emissions of certain projects. Others think Carbon markets are a crucial part of the puzzle to mobilizing countries to make an effort to reduce their GHG emissions and meet their NDC’s (Nationally Determined Contributions). Whatever way you view carbon trading the finalization of Article 6 at COP26 has put the stamp of approval on the Paris Climate Agreement guidebook and should add clarity and certainty to future negotiations and processes.

At Cop26 the major deadlock was around 4 major issues. These were avoiding double counting, ensuring actual overall mitigation of emissions, support of the adaptation fund for developing countries and the transfer of credits acquired from the Kyoto Protocol.

Double counting is the process where one country can acheive its mititgation targets for emissions and then sell those credits named (internationally traded mitigation outcome) ITMO to another country. However instead of only 1 country claiming the reductions as should be the case, both the receiving and providing countries apply the ITMO to their own NDC’s. The framework has now been agreed to prevent this from happening and ensuring transparecny and accountability for trading carbon credits. The other outcome was that previous credits named “Certified Emissions Reductions” under the Kyoto Protocol will be recognised by the Paris Agreemenet NDC’s. This is not a particularly ambitious outcome of high reductions but it allows developing countries to continue receiving finance from these past credits (Acharya, 2021).

I'm not hungry - I'm just greedy
“I’m not hungry – I’m just greedy” by CaptPiper is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Going forward it remains to be seen how the development of carbon markets will play out under these now finalized guidelines. Other reporters such as (Favasuli, 2021)(Temple, 2021) see the potential for a two tier system to become the norm. Countries might want to have their cake and eat it, the UN has no official ruling on voluntary markets and how private companies deal in the carbon trading business. This has the potential for countries and the private sector companies in that country working together where the companies can trade their credits for financial returns while the countries own generated credits can be held towards contributions for its NDC’s. This has the potential to undermine the double counting prevention mechanisms and undermining the credibility of the whole thing. The hope is the body tasked with oversight of the implementation of Article 6 will monitor and make revisions to the guidlines as necessary to prevent repetition of previous mistakes and loopholes.

References

Acharya, M., 2021. COP26: Where do Carbon Markets Stand After Glasgow?. [online] The Wire. Available at: <https://thewire.in/economy/cop-26-where-do-carbon-markets-stand-after-glasgow> [Accessed 25 November 2021].

Favasuli, S., 2021. Paris accord Article 6 approval set to jump-start evolution of voluntary carbon market. [online] Spglobal.com. Available at: <https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/111721-paris-accord-article-6-approval-set-to-jump-start-evolution-of-voluntary-carbon-market> [Accessed 25 November 2021].

Kizzier, K., Levin, K. and Rambharos, M., 2021. What You Need to Know About Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. [online] World Resources Institute. Available at: <https://www.wri.org/insights/what-you-need-know-about-article-6-paris-agreement> [Accessed 25 November 2021].

Saier, A., 2021. [online] Unfccc.int. Available at: <https://unfccc.int/news/cop26-reaches-consensus-on-key-actions-to-address-climate-change> [Accessed 25 November 2021].

Temple, J., 2021. How a new global carbon market could exaggerate climate progress. [online] MIT Technology Review. Available at: <https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/11/24/1040568/how-a-new-global-carbon-market-could-exaggerate-climate-progress/> [Accessed 25 November 2021].

Unfccc.int. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://unfccc.int/news/4-key-achievements-of-cop26> [Accessed 25 November 2021].

Small beginnings.

My majestic self on the Galty Mountains.

Hi there, nice to meet you. Thank for checking out the about me section of my blog!

First things first, this blog is going to be discussing serious, scientific, political and complex issues revolving around climate change and food security. However, I am trying to currate an environment with my blog which is lighthearted and less formal as a way to make these topics easily digestable. Sprinkled with a mix of other interesting topics and posts about things I find interesting and think is worth sharing to broaden everyones knowledge of our world and the climate crisis facing us.

So to start I guess a bit about me. My name is Bozhidar but most people call me Bobby. I am a 24 year old who was born in Bulgaria and has lived in Ireland for the past 21 years. I’m fluent in both English and Bulgarian with enough Spanish to hold a conversation. I have spent most my life living in Co.Tipperary so I’m no stranger to agriculture and farming. However for the majority of my life I havent cared too deeply about farming or its relation to the food we eat and our lives. To get a bit more specific with the topic of this blog I think its important to explain what has led me to where I am and why I am so deeply concerned for food security and the threat of climate change.

My undergrad was in politics and international relations, my interest in politics sprang from my love of history and wanting to have a deeper understanding of how wars occured and the formation of countries and to understand how our history came about. Initially, I was very interested in working in international politics and either being a policy advisor for the european union – (probably the external actions office) or working for Ireland and the department of Foreign Affairs as a delegate in an embassy. Around my third year of the degree I started to get interested in climate politics and hearing more about climate change and the evergrowing threat it posed I started to take it more seriously than before where it was a passing fear of it and concern for the environment but not really engaging with it.

This led to me writing my final year project on climate change policy as I discovered Ireland is considered a laggerd in the EU with addressing climate change. This sparked my interest in where most our emissions come from and upon learning it was from Agriculture I decided to do my project on the relationship between the agricultural lobby in Ireland and the creation of climate change policy. From my research it became clear that the Irish Farmers association and other Ag groups in Ireland have very little interest in meaningfully mitigating climate change and ontop of that and worse the Fina Gael government from 2011-2014 had no interest in meaningful climate change policy either. As a result of the global financial crisis of 2008 Agriculture was on of the few sectors the government could fall back on after the collapse of the building sector and financial markets. This meant the government was relying on the AG sector as a golden goose to bring the irish economy back from the brink and since then has planned to go full steam ahead with intensifying and increasing irelands agricultural output as explained in foodwise 2025 and food harvest 2030, to the detriment of the environment and ensuring Ireland meets its climate targets.

Big rant over I was very quickly disillusioned with politics and very angry with the lack of will to address the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. This has led me to where I am where I have become very involved in climate activisim, being more outspoken towards our leaders who sit by idally as our world falls apart. I have come a long way from 4 years ago. Now I am deeply interested in alternatives to globalisation, a focus on cooperatives, degrowth and how we can solve the climate crisis with a bottom up approach and how agriculture and feeding the planet plays a major role in that and is not nearly as discussed as issues like burning fossil fuels and the energy sector.

This blog will hopefully focus on alternative ways to grow our food that turns away from the intensive, destructive way we practice agriculture currently. I believe politics plays the most important role in this also and will be necessary to bring about the change we need. hopefully youll join me on this blog as we explore how we can achieve this goal.