WHAT HAPPENED AT COP26?

Message from Glasgow

NFU Environment & Land Use Adviser Kate Adams journeyed to Glasgow for Farmers’ Day at COP26, and COY16. She fills us in on all the action as it went down:

If you followed the COP26 programme, you may have noticed that agriculture wasn’t as high up on the agenda as transport, energy and fossil fuels. However, on Farmers’ Day, we had the perfect opportunity to showcase all that agriculture is doing, and can do, to play our part in solving the climate crisis.

A focus on farmers

The day began with a farmers’ constituency meeting in the restricted blue zone, closely followed by press interviews with Minette and the other UK farming union presidents in the open green zone – a tight squeeze considering these two locations are usually connected by a handy footbridge that had been closed for COP26, meaning we had a brisk 20-minute walk to get from one zone to the other. We certainly got our steps in for the day!

In the blue zone, we had our UNFCCC ‘side event’, that was entitled ‘Agriculture’s Ambition – delivering food security, resilience and mitigation in a changing climate’. Minette was on the panel to an almost full house, plus 50 observers online. The session highlighted the role of agriculture in achieving ambitions and that governments must step up to include agriculture in discussions.

If this wasn’t enough to keep us all busy, there were also negotiations on the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA). This is the only work under the UNFCCC that relates to agriculture, and although the negotiations can be painstakingly slow, the outcomes could have direct impacts on farmers across the globe.

Going global

When I first started with the NFU a year ago, I never imagined that I would be representing the organisation at a global conference. But this is exactly what I was able to do at the 16th Conference of Youth (COY), a conference which brings together young people from across the globe to discuss the challenges of climate change.

I was honoured to have been chosen as one of the UK delegates and join young people from across the world. This was the first time that anyone from the NFU had been in attendance!

Although topics of discussion were vast, agriculture and food production were not top of the agenda. Discussions were limited to a single morning where there were no farmers, nor farming representatives, involved in any of the sessions. Cleary this had to be challenged, and I had many great discussions with delegates on the importance of agriculture in addressing the issues.

It’s clear that we must continue to have both a presence and proactive discussions at these conferences. I took great pride in telling the world about British agriculture and our goals to be net zero by 2040, with many delegates admiring these targets and wishing that similar would be implemented in their country.

As for my take home messages from Glasgow? Young people are so incredibly passionate about climate change, and also where their food comes from. Although they care about this, food production is often seen as the same from across the world and although some were aware of the great story that British agriculture had to tell, many were not. We must continue to have a presence at conferences to give farmers a voice.

For more information on agriculture and climate change, visit the NFU’s net zero online hub at NFUonline.com/NetZero