U.S. Participating in Declaration to Promote Sustainable Agriculture

U.S. Participating in Declaration to Promote Sustainable Agriculture

Agriculture releases up to 30 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, hastening climate change, according to the World Resources Institute. In turn, climate change exacerbates extreme weather conditions that cause droughts and floods, which destroy crops. To stop this vicious cycle, the United Arab Emirates, the host country of the COP28 climate change conference, introduced the Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, which commits signatories to fully incorporate food systems into the next round of their nationally determined contributions. So far, 134 countries have signed on.

The Declaration “represents a landmark commitment … to better align efforts on agriculture and food systems with climate action,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “The United States is joining the Declaration and will serve as a founding member of the Technical Cooperation Collaborative to help implement its vision.”

“700 million people are chronically undernourished. About half of these people face acute food insecurity: meaning quite simply they don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” said Secretary Blinken. “This crisis is made worse by our warming climate and by extreme weather events. … The mother unable to provide her baby essential nutrients. The parents unable to put food on the table.”

“As President Biden has said, if parents can’t feed their children, nothing else matters,” said Secretary Blinken. “And here is the problem: This challenge is only going to get worse.”

“A growing population means the global demand for food is likely to increase by an estimated 50 percent by the year 2050. An escalating climate crisis means that crop yields could drop by as much as 30 percent over that same period. So do the math: We’ll be feeding more and more people on a planet where growing food will become harder and harder,” he said.

For our part, the United States is ear-marking a billion dollars per year through Feed the Future, the United States’ government’s global food security initiative.

“Our goal is for farmers, for ranchers, to be able to sustainably achieve bigger yields of more nutritious crops, at lower costs, using less land, producing lower emissions,” said Secretary Blinken.

“Even as the global community confronts other challenges demanding our attention, we have to maintain our focus on ending climate-driven hunger. [COP28] will raise our ambitions to do exactly that.”