FEATURE Climate change
The mother of all causes FOR COFFEE FARMERS, CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOTHING NEW, BUT WILL 2020 BE THE TIPPING POINT FOR THE REST OF THE GLOBAL COFFEE INDUSTRY?
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ince the 2016 Paris Agreement first set into motion global commitments from 195 countries to slow climate change by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, companies and organisations around the world have been making their own commitments to lessen their respective carbon footprints. The agreement set an ambitious goal of limiting the global temperature increase to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. In working toward that longer-term target, the Agreement required countries to set shorter-term commitments for 2030, and to become carbon neutral by 2050. Four years in and a decade from the first benchmark, 2020 is shaping up to be a year of more significant pledges and change, including from the coffee industry. In January, the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, made its focus once again on climate change. There, global asset management firm BlackRock announced plans to rebuild its multitrilliondollar portfolio around climate change and the McKinsey Global Institute released an in-depth “Climate Risk & Response” report. Earlier that month, Microsoft committed to removing more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits by 2030, as well as removing its 45 years of historic carbon emissions by 2050. From the coffee sector, Starbucks announced its commitment to become “resource positive” by 2030, and back in October 2019, illycaffé committed to carbon neutrality by 2033, its centennial anniversary.
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HOW COFFEE ADAPTS Climate change has manifested across regions and industries in various ways and its impacts are being felt worldwide, especially in the agricultural sector. Meanwhile, agriculture itself is a significant contributor to climate change through direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. The coffee industry is not exempt from either. “Not only is climate change threatening the future suitability of growing regions with major shifts or entire loss, it is also amplifying the challenges already facing the industry, from aging coffee trees and pest and disease outbreaks to poor management practices and limited investment funding for implementing change,” reads the Brewing up Climate Resilience in the Coffee Sector report, produced in 2019 by a consortium of industry climate leaders.
