Kelly Stone, ActionAid USA Policy Analyst, says:
“Ignoring agroecology in this roadmap is frustrating, if not surprising. Despite the essential aspects of agroecology for small-family farmers adaptation and the value it brings for mitigation in the agriculture sector, it is often ignored. That’s not acceptable if we are going to have the needed just transition in agriculture.
The biomass provisions, though, are deeply disturbing and have no place in this document. Bioenergy, with or without carbon capture and storage, is not a climate solution and it’s certainly not in keeping with food and land rights.”
Teresa Anderson, ActionAid’s Global Climate Justice Lead, says:
“The Roadmap’s big problem is that it can’t bring itself to name the real issues at stake. It dances around the elephant in the room, pointing the finger anywhere but the actual culprits in the food sector. In failing to name chemical fertilizers, factory farming, or industrialized agriculture as the major sources of emissions and deforestation, its recommendations boil down to protecting the status quo.
One-quarter of the world’s people base their livelihoods on agriculture. The Roadmap struggles with the tension between the need to protect the livelihoods of billions of farmers and the compulsion to cheerlead the agribusiness technologies that displace labor, livelihoods, and local knowledge.
The lack of joined-up thinking is illustrated by a naïve endorsement of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) to drive down global temperatures. BECCS is more likely to drive land grabs and deforestation, harming farmers and creating conflicts over land and food. It’s surprising to see food experts blind to that likely outcome.”
ENDS
For media requests, please email Christal.James@actionaid.org or call 704 665 9743.
Spokespeople are available:
- Kelly Stone is at OP28 and available for interviews.
- Teresa Anderson is at COP28 and available for interviews and media engagements.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 15 million people living in more than 40 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.