Conference on "Climate Change in Agriculture"
Dr. Norbert Röttgen, German Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
What role does agriculture play in climate protection and how can it adapt itself to climate change? What approaches in science and policy can address this problem, and how can the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) contribute in this area? Over 100 scientists, policy makers, and experts from pertinent government agencies and associations discussed these and other questions at the conference "Climate Change in Agriculture", which took place on 20 January 2011 at the headquarters of the Permanent Representation of the Federal State of the Saarland in Berlin and was moderated by Prof. Dr. Beate Jessel. Norbert Röttgen, the German federal minister of the environment, opened the conference, which was organised by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation with the help of Ecologic Institute. The conference was also made possible by funds from the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
From 18-29 October 2010 the tenth meeting of the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was held in Nagoya (Japan). Although expectations were low after the disappointing outcome of the climate conference in Copenhagen, which led to a general skepticism about multilateral agreements among experts, the Nagoya meeting terminated with a bunch of substantial decisions.
A breakthrough in the UN climate negotiations was achieved in Cancun, Mexico, during the first two weeks of December 2010. After the collapse of negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009, the Cancun conference revived the process by reaching a set of operational decisions that both formalise essential elements of last year’s “Copenhagen Accord” and keep the prospect of a binding agreement open. The decisions address key elements of the climate negotiations such as the aim of limiting the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, a formal anchoring of mitigation pledges by developed countries as well as mitigation actions by developing countries, transparency of actions and a new Global Climate Fund. The decisions have given a new impulse to building the future climate regime, but details still need to be worked out in the run-up to the next summit in South Africa in November/December 2011. More and more civil society observers are attending the COPs every year, and many observers essentially treat the COP as a central, global meeting place for all discussions, academic work and outreach related to climate change. A delegation from Ecologic Institute also attended the climate summit.
