Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, IITA
A woman farmer in Mozambique with DT maize harvest. Credit: CIMMYT
IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 2021 (IPS) - 17 February – African smallholder farmers have no choice but to adapt to climate change: 2020 was the second hottest year on record, while prolonged droughts and explosive floods are directly threatening the livelihoods of millions. By the 2030s, lack of rainfall and rising temperatures could render 40 percent of Africa’s maize-growing area unsuitable for climate-vulnerable varieties grown by farmers, while maize remains the preferred and affordable staple food for millions of Africans who survive on less than a few dollars of income a day.
Successful Crop Innovation Is Mitigating Climate Crisis Impact in Africa – Business ipsnews.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ipsnews.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo called for stronger global commitments to tackle climate change this week, but environmentalists complain that Indonesia’s emissions-reduction target has not budged and that national policies are still being pursued at the expense of the environment.
Feature: Restore Africa’s degraded land – Climate Adaptation Summit
Format
Land is one of Africa’s most abundant resources, but it has become degraded across large swathes of the continent. Restoring the productivity of land will form a vital part of Africa’s sustainable adaptation to climate change – the Climate Adaptation Summit heard this week. CDKN’s Mairi Dupar reports.
“Land restoration has a positive impact on the economy, on business, on biodiversity and is a carbon sink, so you have multiple opportunities that can be achieved through land restoration,” Ibrahaim Thiaw told the Climate Adaptation Summit this week.
Speaking at a special Africa-focused event, Mr Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, said that if African governments were serious about “building back better” from the Covid-19 pandemic, then “we have to invest heavily in land restoration and in ecosystem-based adaptation” to climate change. This
A mockup of a planet earth is displayed at the Rheinaue park during the COP23 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany. - AFP
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): President Joko Jokowi Widodo called for stronger global commitments to tackle climate change this week, but environmentalists are not buying it.
They complain that Indonesia’s emissions-reduction target has not budged and that national policies are still being pursued at the expense of the environment.
In a prerecorded statement aired at the 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS) hosted by the Netherlands on Tuesday (Jan 26), Jokowi said that the impacts of climate change were “very real” for archipelagic nations like Indonesia.