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Dubai: The International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), an international not-for-profit research centre headquartered in the UAE, has proposed 10 initiatives for UN Climate Conference (COP28) across five themes focusing on sustainable agriculture.
“With all the work that we do, we are ensuring that we meet our scientific agenda whether apply research or development work. As part of it, we have an agenda for COP28 with 10 different initiatives, which will communicate to every theme that we have during COP28 and highlight the national and international SDGs,” informed Tarifa Alzaabi, deputy director general of ICBA.
The list by ICBA that aims to ensure sustainable livelihoods and food security for all who live in marginal environments includes saving the millets campaign marking the international year of millets by food and agricultural organisation (FAO) that will result into producing a policy paper and a book.
“We have ‘save the millets campaign’ since it’s the international millets year. We have already launched the campaign which is aligned with our counterfort approach. Millets are not only nutritious in terms of protein and other minerals but also, they have a very low carbon footprint,” Proposal Development Specialist of ICBA Nour El Jundi said.
To create domestic and global demand and to provide nutritional food to the people, India proposed to the United Nations for declaring 2023 as International Year of Millets (IYoM-2023) and it was accepted during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly. IYM 2023 will be an opportunity to raise awareness of, and direct policy attention to the nutritional and health benefits of millets and their suitability for cultivation under adverse and changing climatic conditions.
Though the UAE is still struggling to promote the production of millets due to lack of rainfall weighing on the agriculture activity, India has been on the forefront to promote millets consumption.
Additionally, ICBA has proposed for a research training programme collaborations for organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries-1 pilot case of Uganda, ‘demo agtech hub’ at ICBA to demonstrate agri-preneurs technologies and one policy paper on the findings of the ESG Nexus with agriculture under climate change workshop co-organised with the Rothamsted Research, the UK, two senior officials aware of the matter said.
As far as the nature, land use, and oceans are concerned, it proposed high level stakeholders and experts’ discussions during COP28 to develop a policy brief on drought monitoring systems for rain fed agriculture systems in the middle east and north Africa.
ICBA proposed to run a social media campaign showcasing 28 global leaders advocates for sustainable agriculture during the world climate action summit, a COP28 side event. The World Climate Summit between 7-8 December in Dubai will
share best practices and innovations across sectors that are essential to decarbonisation efforts focusing on energy, transport, buildings, industry, finance, and nature.
“The social media campaign will reach global leaders across the world and collaborate to advocate sustainable agriculture in terms of climate security, biodiversity and so on, Nour shared.”
The event links up to the Global Stocktake on how non-government stakeholders can achieve transition pathways to deliver on climate action. The Summit further serves as a platform for front-running pledges, commitments and action plans aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
To bring sustainability, the non-profit applied agricultural research center ICBA has proposed to announced women alliance for climate action in agriculture aiming to reach 1 million women globally.
ICBA is an organization co-founded and supported by the Government of the UAE and contributes to the UAE’s national agenda on agricultural research and development and international development initiatives on agriculture and food security. It provides technical assistance and other support to national projects and activities related to food security, agriculture and environmental sustainability and conservation.
Queries sent to the office of Sultan al-Jaber, COP28 president, remained unanswered till press time.
UAE will host the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference at the Expo City, Dubai from 30 November to 12 December.
(The reporter was in Dubai at the invitation of the UAE government.)
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