What is the Emirates declaration on food and climate and why Italy is betting so much on it

Italy was the protagonist in the declaration on agri-food and climate, the Emirates declaration.He also wants to build the G7 agenda on the convergence between these two themes.

At stake is the transforming the way we grow and produce food to be able to feed the entire world population.But also the need to do it without further jeopardizing the transition to a net-zero emissions economy and in order to keep the increase in global average temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius.Agriculture, in fact, is both victim and executioner of the climate crisis and this risks bringing the entire agri-food system close to collapse.To avoid this, over 150 countries have joined the Emirates declaration, or the COP28 Declaration on sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems and climate action.

The objective of this declaration, strongly supported by Italy since COP27 in Sharm el-Sheik, is to raise awareness among the international community of the need to recalibrate the amount of money allocated to climate finance towards the agri-food sector because "bringing these two emergencies together is fundamental", as the special envoy for food safety Stefano Gatti also explained exclusively to LifeGate.

In fact, between 2000 and 2021, approximately 183 billion dollars were mobilized, of which approximately half after 2016.But in 2021, the overall figure allocated to the sector it was 19 billion, approximately 12 percent less than in 2020.And to reverse course and aim towards a rebalancing of the destination of this funding, our country looks to the needs of the African continent, where food and climate are two sides of the same coin.An emblematic example reported by Gatti is that of Tunisia:in five years, unprecedented water scarcity has reduced cereal production from 2.5 million to 500 thousand tons per year.

Italy's role in the Emirates declaration

“We have supported the logic and direction of this Declaration and know that there is no way to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or realize the promises of the Paris Agreement without addressing the interactions between food systems, agriculture and climate ”, declared Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Minister for the Environment and Energy Security, during the institutional event held in Dubai and which saw Italy take the lead together with the United Arab Emirates.“The Italian presidency of the G7 in 2024 will continue” to maintain “high attention on global food security on the international political agenda” and to do so it will also rely on the conclusions of Cop28.In preparation for the G7, therefore, Italy - again through the words of Pichetto Fratin - has decided to support the "collaboration for technical cooperation and implement the Emirates declaration" to which it will contribute 10 million euros as a first step to attract investments in the implementation of plans that integrate "food and climate in developing countries".

What is it about? Of a table that can help interested African countries not only to receive funding for projects related to the sustainable development of the agri-food sector, but also to learn how to package them in the best way.The 10 million euros will be taken from Italian climate fund which should be endowed with 840 million euros per year from 2022 to 2026, and then stabilize at 40 million euros per year from 2027 onwards, subject to the presence of financial contributions from third parties, public or private.

The FAO is charting the course towards an agri-food system for a +1.5 degree climate

To support the convergence between the fight against the climate crisis and that against hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) also intervened.December 10th, day dedicated to food, agriculture and water at COP28 in Dubai, published a strategy that should support the international community to take all necessary actions.A plan that will be developed between now and 2025, through collaboration with the presidencies of the next climate conferences, in particular Cop29 and Cop30.

There roadmap of the FAO is divided into 120 actions divided into ten areas:

1. Clean energy
2. Collected
3. Fisheries and aquaculture
4. Food loss and waste
5. Forests and wetlands
6. Healthy eating
7. Farms
8. Soil and water
9. Data
10. Inclusive policies

Although more than half of the time we have available to reach the 17 SDGs - adopted in 2015 and expiring in 2030 –, the road towards objective 2 Zero hunger seems uphill:today it is estimated that at the end of the journey, in just six harvest years, they will still be 600 million people will suffer from hunger compared to 735 million today, as reported by the Global Hunger Index presented in Italy by the Cesvi Foundation just before the start of the COP28 work.We are therefore experiencing a situation of "stall and regression" compared to the period that preceded the pandemic and for this reason it is essential, according to the FAO, to wake up and try to improve the efficiency in food production, just like what is being doing in other sectors, such as the energy sector, to reduce CO2 emissions and adopting medium-long term adaptation policies.In short, the entire agri-food system needs to be rethought.

Among the most incisive actions present in the roadmap is the 25 percent reduction in methane emissions caused by livestock farming.Or make sure that fishing becomes totally sustainable, without any exceptions.And then halve food waste and eliminate the use of coal stoves for cooking food.All by 2030.

For Craig Hanson, managing director of the World Resources Institute, "one of the most demanding challenges of our time is to feed everyone by 2050 without destroying the planet in the production phase" and for this purpose "the richest nations must convince their population to reduce their meat consumption and at the same time reduce emissions from the agricultural sector thanks to technology."Finally, “small farmers must be supported more in the process of adapting to extreme weather events.And all these changes must happen without a single tree being cut down to make room for agriculture."Exactly those small farmers which, again according to the special correspondent Gatti, must be valued because "they are the real ones guardians of the earth”.With a lowercase T.