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http://www.climate-l.org/2008/06/unccd-suggests.html

UNCCD Suggests Expanding CDM Coverage of Agricultural Land Use

5 June 2008: Deputy Executive Secretary Grégoire de Kalbermatten addressed the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) High-Level Conference on Food Security on 5 June 2008, and emphasized actions to enhance carbon sequestration in soil. He suggested that the climate change negotiations should give increased attention to land and soil, including by expanding the Clean Development Mechanism’s (CDM) coverage of agricultural land use, particularly projects focusing on carbon sequestration in soil. He called on the host country of the next UNFCCC COP (Poland) and like-minded countries to facilitate an initiative that will put land and soil on the mitigation and adaptation agendas. The Deputy Executive Secretary welcomed FAO’s and IFAD’s roles in joining UNEP and the UNCCD “in supporting the efforts of the Environmental Management Group to launch an interagency cooperation network on land in which FAO should pay a key role.” He also highlighted the merits of enhanced cooperation with FAO and concerned institutions in providing an “assessment of the extent to which measures taken under the agriculture sectoral programmes of multilateral financing institutions have taken into account” combating desertification, land degradation and drought and, as appropriate, “to actualize an estimate of the cost of non-action.” [Statement]