UN Climate Summit 2014

The 2014 Climate Summit, to be held 23 September, is aimed at catalyzing action by governments, business, finance, industry, and civil society in areas for new commitments and substantial, scalable and replicable contributions to the Summit that will help the world shift toward a low-carbon economy. The event will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York.

As such, The UN Secretary-General has invited leaders from Government, business, finance and civil society to come to the Climate Summit and make bold commitments to action in areas that are critical for keeping global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius. Agriculture is a priority area and the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture will be formally launched during the summit.

The Summit will come one year before countries aim to conclude a global climate agreement in 2015 through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Although the 2014 Climate Summit is not part of the negotiating process, countries have recognized the value of the Summit, including by welcoming the Secretary-General’s efforts in a Decision of the Doha climate conference in 2012.

The Secretary-General has asked world leaders to come to the Summit to announce bold actions that they will be taking in their countries. There will also be announcements from a number of coalition initiatives that have high potential to catalyze ambitious action on the ground. These coalitions, consisting of participants from Governments, the private sector and civil society, will address several high-impact areas, such as climate finance; energy efficiency; renewable energy; adaptation; disaster risk reduction and resilience; forests; agriculture; transportation; short-lived climate pollutants; and cities.

At the summit, the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture will be launched. The Alliance aims to enable 500 million farmers worldwide to practice climate-smart agriculture: increasing agricultural productivity and incomes, strengthening the resilience of food systems and farmers’ livelihoods and curbing the emission of greenhouse gases related to agriculture. The alliance is a voluntary coalition of a broad range of stakeholders: governments, food producers, farmers, scientists, civil society, multilateral organizations and the private sector.

Read more: UN Climate Summit 2014 - Action Area: Agriculture

The session for Agriculture is from 16:20 to 17:00 EST . The session will include announcements of commitments, including the launch of the Global Alliance.