It is essential to review the way land is used and cultivated around the world to ensure both the food security of the Earth and the fight against global warming, warned UN climate experts Thursday.
"Short-term" actions
The IPCC calls for "short-term" actions against land degradation, food waste or greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector, in a special report on land unveiled in Geneva.
Delegations from the 195 member countries of the Giec reviewed for five days the report, whose full title is: "climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and gas flows to greenhouse effect in terrestrial ecosystems ". In short: how global warming affects land devoted to crops, livestock or forests, and in turn food security, but also how agricultural practices or deforestation affect the climate.
Act now
The "summary for policymakers" of this 1,200-page report, negotiated line by line, was unveiled at a press conference. His main conclusions? "Our land use (...) is unsustainable and contributes to climate change," said co-chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte, for whom the report "emphasizes the importance of taking action as soon as possible. now". We must also "eliminate food waste and reduce meat consumption," insists the NGO Climate Action Network.
This work is the second in a series of three "special reports" of the Giec, after the one on the possibility of containing the warming at 1.5 ° C, last year, and before that on the oceans and the cryosphere (pack ice , glaciers, polar ice caps) expected in late September, when the UN will hold a summit on climate in New York.