Climate Change

Following Civil Society's Lead on Climate Solutions

In 2009, when IATP published its first climate series prior to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Copenhagen, there was genuine hope that governments would make significant progress towards a global response to climate change. That progress never materialized, and cynicism has grown about the effectiveness of the UNFCCC.

Women at the Center of Climate-friendly Approaches to Agriculture and Water Use

Global warming has already affected the world’s climate, and changed the type, timing, duration and intensity of water precipitation, resulting in major and minor weather events. These events have been playing havoc with the agriculture-dependent livelihoods and food security of about 70 percent of the world’s poor.

Grain Reserves: A Smart Climate Adaptation Policy

Consider these four developments: 1.) Climate change is having a profound effect on current and anticipated food production; 2.) Those effects are expected to be greatest in some of the world’s most impoverished regions, particularly in the countries that sit around the equator; 3.) The anticipated effects of climate change, coupled with the already evident disruptions to natural phenomena, inc

Financing Agriculture Adaptation to Climate Change: A Modest Beginning

President Obama’s climate-related diplomatic capacity in Cancún will be severely limited by incoming and current members of the U.S. Congress who consider climate change science too uncertain to serve as a basis for economic policy change or simply a fraudulent conspiracy to undermine the U.S. economy.

A Farm Bill for a Cooler Climate

Agriculture offers a two-fold benefit for the climate: as a place to reduce direct emissions and as a carbon sink. Many farmers have already adopted more climate-friendly agriculture practices, stimulated in part by programs in the 2008 Farm Bill.

Governments at Cancún climate talks need to support local solutions

Cancun, Mexico – Governments attending the global climate talks in Cancún, which begin today, need to abandon loophole-ridden carbon markets and support bottom-up climate solutions that integrate equity, food security and democratic participation, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).