Embrapa researcher forms part of Brazilian negotiating delegation to discuss agriculture at COP 27

Researcher Marcelo Morandi is representing Embrapa at the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), which takes place from November 6th to 18th in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Morandi is part of the Brazilian negotiating delegation, at the invitation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa). 

Although Brazil brought to Egypt the idea that the country is part of the solution to the world's worrying energy crisis, through access to renewable means and sources of energy - biomass and wind, Morandi explains that the agricultural sector also has great potential contribution to curbing climate warming, increasing resilience and ensuring sustainable food production, as well as important safeguards to ensure food security.

In climate negotiations, in the context of the United Nations Convention of the Parties (UNFCCC), Morandi is one of the negotiators who are part of the Koronivia Joint Working Group (KJWA), which debates the need to promote investments in agricultural adaptation to increase and maintain the resilience of production systems and, therefore, ensuring food security.

“At this Conference of the Parties there are high hopes for progress in implementing and financing adaptation. Transparency mechanisms will also be in focus,” he declares. Morandi also highlights that at COP27 it will be proposed to continue the work of Koronivia, focusing on implementing actions discussed over the last few years, aiming to take care of adaptation and its co-benefits, ensuring the resilience of agriculture and food security, an opportunity for the ABC+ Plan.

The plan must include a set of activities related to the agricultural sector, adapted to regional and local climatic and socio-environmental specificities. It must be appropriate and collaborative and bring experience of what has already been produced from solutions in Brazil and other countries. This is an initiative that is aligned with other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, creating a common regional position that will be presented in the COP 27 negotiations.

Expectations

As the Embrapa researcher highlights, negotiations have just begun and expectations for the 27th COP are consistent advances related to transparency (a factor that necessarily implies promoting improvements in the national inventory), adaptation and financing.

He explains that significant progress must be made in defining the rules for implementing cooperation mechanisms to meet national climate goals, provided for in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, to establish the operating framework.

“The implementation of the Paris Agreement and other mechanisms of the convention is the central word here, however, multilateral negotiations are always complex and must incorporate the many peculiarities of the contracting parties”, he ponders.

According to him, Brazil has actively participated in the discussions, bringing what is essential to show the progress of tropical agriculture, “but there is still a lot to do”. For him, sustainability is a journey, not an episode, in which the leaders of Brazil and several countries are now immersed.

“Investing in science and technology and treating production and preservation as elements of the same equation is the path we must follow.”