Vilsack attends COP29 in Baku

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is attending the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, a USDA spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

The conference started Monday and lasts through Nov. 22.

No details of Vilsack’s schedule in Baku have been released. But a spokesman noted that the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate that Vilsack started with the United Arab Emirates to increase investment in and support for climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation runs through 2026.

John Podesta, the White House climate adviser who is leading the U.S. delegation, said President-elect Donald Trump can slow, not stop, the transition from fossil fuels when he returns to office in January, NBC News reported.

Several of the most important world leaders including President Biden, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Xi Jinping of China are not attending the summit.

At COP29, The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is hosting a pavilion called the Home of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas that will host more than 50 presentations.

“At the pavilion, the 34 countries of the Americas and their farmers will make their voices heard in the negotiations, and showcase the major progress being made in their rural areas to contribute to climate change mitigation and to build resilience to droughts, floods and other natural events that are becoming more frequent and more extreme,” IICA said in a news release.

In Baku Tuesday, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Qu Dongyu said, “The only way to reduce carbon emissions and restore nature on the path to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is to transform our agrifood systems,” the FAO said in a news release.

This transformation to more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable global agrifood systems is increasingly recognized as essential for achieving the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, Qu said. The shift “holds solutions for the climate crisis and the interlinked challenges of food, water, land and biodiversity,” Qu told an event titled Cutting Carbon, Adapting Food Systems and Restoring Nature on the Path to 1.5C.

The director-general also highlighted the signing a year ago at COP28 of the Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery and Peace, in which 70 governments and 39 organizations called for bolder collective action to build climate resilience in countries in fragile and conflict-affected settings.