Lack of focus on nature and farming solutions at COP29, say campaigners

Focus on nature and agriculture-based solutions has been lacking at the UN climate summit this week, campaigners said.

COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has reached its final stages but activists say the role of nature, such as forests, soil and farming has not had enough air time during the two-week summit.

Nature plays a vital role in absorbing man-made greenhouse gas emissions while land-based and marine ecosystems can help to regulate the climate and mitigate against impacts of global warming.

But campaigners at COP29 say countries have not sufficiently incorporated nature protection and restoration into their national climate action plans, or into multilateral negotiations on finance, adaptation and mitigation.

As countries try to hammer out a new deal on climate finance for poorer nations, almost 70 organisations and individuals signed an open letter calling for nations to settle on an increase in funding to restore and support nature.

The letter co-ordinated by Nature4Climate said an agreement that does not adequately recognise nature’s role in climate action “risks undermining” global efforts towards the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit dangerous global warming.

“Healthy ecosystems are not merely co-benefits — they serve as cost-effective climate solutions that urgently need dedicated funding,” it read.

WWF echoed this on Wednesday when it put forward proposals for a new climate and nature work programme to drive closer alignment between the UN climate and biodiversity summits.

The campaign group also released a report that found only four per cent of national action plans it reviewed had an explicit reference to deforestation-free supply chains.

William Baldwin-Cantello, WWF’s director of nature-based solutions, said: “It’s vital that when countries improve their climate plans, they elevate forest protection as a national priority.”

The group urged countries to give more priority to the world’s forests and pressed the UK government to bring forward proposals to ban goods linked to deforestation, first promised two years ago.

Elsewhere, dozens of campaign groups backed a policy briefing to negotiators, which called for urgent access to climate finance for farmers in developing nations to help restore soil health.

According to the UN, up to 40 per cent of the planet’s land is degraded and 90 per cent of its topsoil could be at risk by 2050.

Praveena Sridhar, chief technical officer at Save Soil, said soil health is “pivotal to food security, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and a variety of other ecosystem benefits”.

She also called on the UK to take action on degraded soil domestically, adding that farmers needed support to boost this key carbon sink.

“We can’t expect farmers in the UK to transition to regenerative practices without a strong support mechanism,” she said.

It comes after UN officials urged countries to adopt new initiatives on reducing methane from organic waste and a collaboration platform that supports farmers and shares learnings on reducing the impact from agriculture.

UN agriculture official Kaveh Zahedi told reporters at COP29: “Transforming agriculture and food systems is going to be critical if we want to achieve the Paris Agreement, whether that is on the side of adaptation or indeed on the side of mitigation.”

And UN environment official Martina Otto encouraged countries to incorporate a new declaration on reducing methane emissions from organic waste in their national climate plans, saying: “It is an area we can take action.”

For the UK, this comes against a backdrop of angry protests by British farmers, sparked by proposed changes to inheritance tax rules, coming after record poor harvests, rising costs and increasing pressure to invest in nature-friendly farming.

Martin Lines, chief executive of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), said: “Farming simply has to be supported to move rapidly to lower its emissions, reduce artificial inputs and prioritise soil health and working with rather than against nature.”

He added that the transition to nature-friendly farming is “not optional or a nice-to-have luxury” but “absolutely essential” to limiting global warming.

Meanwhile, Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, which organised the protests in London on Tuesday, said the union hopes the new government will “treat UK farming as an ally for its climate ambitions”.

But he added that this ambition “needs to be backed by meaningful policy incentives and levers enabling the farming sector to improve productivity, incentivise baselining and better data and scientific evidence and to boost renewable energy and the wider bioeconomy”.

A UK Environment Department spokesperson said: “We are strengthening Britain’s food security whilst also helping farmers protect the environment, and we know that reducing methane emissions is crucial if we are to tackle climate and nature crisis.

“It’s why we are investing £5 billion into farming over the next two years – including £1.8 billion towards Environmental Land Management schemes which will boost nature and sustainable food production while cutting emissions.”