The Bonn Climate Change Conference was held from June 17th to 27th 2019 in Bonn, Germany under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The conference hosted a wide range of events, meetings, and negotiating sessions that aimed at setting the stage for a successful COP25 in Chile in December 2019.
A delegation of the World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO), led by the President, Theo de Jager, joined the conference, getting involved in in several panels and roundtables so ensuring that farmers’ voice was heard.
The group was also composed by Ceris Jones, Facilitator of WFO Working Group on Climate Change and Climate Change Adviser at UK NFU; Tobias Gräs, Member of WFO Working Group on Climate Change and Senior Policy Advisor at DAFC – Danish Agriculture and Food Council.
In a nutshell, it is what happened in Bonn!
17 June 2019
During SB Joint Statements Plenary Theo de Jager was invited to present the Farmers Constituency statement on behalf of the World Farmers’ Organisation and hundreds of millions of farmers across the world.
As FARMERS’ representative, de Jager emphasized that transformative change in the agricultural sector requires scaling-up finance, innovation and technology transfer, and putting livelihoods of women and future farmers at the centre.
Listen to Theo de Jager’s speaking out on behalf of farmers!
CLICK HERE AND FAST-FORWARD TO THE SEGMENT 02:03:23 – 02:05:10
18 June 2019
Within the framework of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, Theo de Jager joined the workshop “Methods and approaches for assessing adaptation, adaptation co-benefits and resilience”, providing farmers’ perspective on such issues.Specifically, on methods and approaches, the WFO President highlighted the importance for farmers to be involved in the process so that not only the National Determined Contributions, NDCs, that national Governments are called to present and observe to implement the Paris Agreement, are relevant to farmers. As reminded by Theo de Jager, during his interview with the Climate Action Studio, the UNFCCC platform for showcasing action of non-Party stakeholders in the climate change process, governments have not consulted their farmers organizations in compiling the NDCs and don’t know where or how farmers fit in.
19 June 2019
The WFO president attended the side event “Agriculture for Climate Action: a vision for future” hosted by the UN Rome-based Agencies, FAO, IFAD and WFP. The event was aimed at defining the long-term vision for addressing climate change through agricultural sectors as well as at discussing the future of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture.
During his speech on the enabling environments to implement climate change policies in agriculture, the WFO President emphasised how important is within the NDCs process the communication to farmers, reminding the audience that communication means both saying and listening.
The side event provided the perfect venue to raise awareness on “The Climakers. Farmers Driven Climate Change Agenda” and the importance to get the climate negotiations on agriculture to a practical and implementable level, including farmers’ needs in the process.