Alliance for the reduction of greenhouse gases from agriculture: Switzerland signs up

Bern, 16.12.2009 - At present, agriculture is responsible for the production of around 14% of greenhouse gases. With increasing demand for food and changing consumer habits, this figure is predicted to rise in the coming years. A global research alliance, to which Switzerland signed up in Copenhagen on 16 December 2009, aims to increase research into how to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the agricultural sector.

In the coming decades the agricultural sector will be faced with two major challenges in connection with climate change. On the one hand, the demand for food will rise (by as much as 70% by the year 2050 compared with 2000, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation), and on the other it is of the utmost urgency that global emissions of greenhouse gases be reduced and that the potential for reductions in the agricultural sector be fully exploited in the long term.

As a result of increasing demand for food and changing consumer habits all round the world, total emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture are expected to rise by around 30 to 40% by 2050 in comparison with the level for 2005.

Global Research Alliance is launched

Agriculture, and consequently food production, is not only a major source of greenhouse gases, however, but is also strongly influenced by climate change. So far only isolated measures for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture have been devised and implemented. Until now, the global potential for reductions in the agricultural sector and the need for agriculture to adapt to climate change, as set out in 2007 by the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), have been given only scant consideration by scientific circles and in relation to international climate policy.

This needs to change. The Globel Research Alliance for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by agriculture is an off-shoot of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen. This alliance was originally launched in autumn 2009 in New Zealand and over 15 countries have already signed up, including the USA, Uruguay, Ghana, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, France, Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands. Its aim is to increase funding for research and to encourage and coordinate the exchange of information between research institutes and individual researchers.

Secretary of State Bruno Oberle (Head of the Federal Office for the Environment) signed up, on behalf of Switzerland, to join the Global Research Alliance on Wednesday, 16 December 2009 at the climate conference in Copenhagen. Switzerland will contribute research ideas and exchange information about relevant research results. Cooperation will be coordinated by Prof. Michael Kreuzer (Zurich FIT) on the scientific side, and by Mr. Reto Burkhard (FOAG) on the federal administration side.


Address for enquiries

Reto Burkard, Deputy Head of the Ecology Division, Federal Office for Agriculture; tel. ++41 (0)31 322 58 77 / ++41 (0)79 358 83 34


Publisher

Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture
http://www.blw.admin.ch

Federal Office for the Environment FOEN
https://www.bafu.admin.ch/en

https://www.admin.ch/content/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-30753.html