Climate change is a major threat to agricultural production. Africa is particularly affected. Since 1961, total agricultural productivity growth in Africa has been reduced by 34 per cent due to climate change. These negative effects are likely to increase. The yields of staple cereals and legumes in the tropics are expected to decline by 5 per cent for every degree Celsius of global warming. Yield reductions and harvest failures are undermining food security and increasing hunger. Depending on the climate scenario, up to 80 million additional people could be at risk of hunger due to climate change (IPCC 2022).

Since its launch at COP 26, the Breakthrough Agenda has become established as an annual collaborative process centred around the Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is currently supported by over 60 countries representing over 80% of global GDP, and by over 150 initiatives working to enhance collaboration within major emitting sectors. Countries can endorse Breakthrough goals to make clean technologies and sustainable practices more affordable, accessible and attractive than their alternatives by 2030 in the power, road transport, hydrogen, steel, cement and buildings sectors.

The Breakthrough Agenda establishes an annual cycle to track developments towards these goals, identify where further co-ordinated international action is urgently needed to accelerate progress and then galvanise public and private international action behind these specific priorities in order to make these transitions quicker, cheaper, and easier for all.

To initiate this cycle, world leaders tasked the IEA and the Climate High-Level Champions to develop an annual Breakthrough Agenda report to provide an independent evidence base and expert recommendations for where stronger international collaboration is needed. From 2022-2024, the reports contained a detailed assessment on the state of international collaboration across these sectors in areas such as definitions, standards and certification, demand creation and management, research and innovation, finance and investment, infrastructure, and trade conditions, among others.

The Breakthrough Agenda Report 2025 – the fourth in the annual series – takes a different approach to previous reports, in that it does not contain the same detailed sector-by-sector assessment. Instead, this year’s report focuses on enhancing the methodology behind the detailed progress assessments, provides practical examples of collaboration through deep dives, and introduces a new focus chapter on fertilisers.

This new paper from IFDC outlines the role of soil in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change while also being influenced by these changes – a complex two-way relationship.

The authors first provide an understanding of this relationship before discussing the direct and indirect pathways through which soil health impacts carbon sequestration. Next, they highlight global evidence on soil health’s role in ecosystem services, including its ability to promote resilient, climate-adaptable systems.

Then, they discuss how these beneficial effects are under threat, as the increase in climate change-induced events limits the ability of soil to mitigate and manage climate change. Finally, they conclude by identifying areas where further action and research are needed. 

The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) is a multistakeholder partnership committed to scaling soil health, globally. CA4SH places a high degree of importance on the role of youth as innovators and experts toward scaling global soil health. Youth are engaged through the #Youth4Soil movement, which includes a working group, mentorship opportunities, and support for speaking and engagement. We also want to highlight youth approaches to advocating for global soil health.

In April 2024, Roël D. Houdanon, Founder & Chief Technical Advisor, Land and Health Association shared an op-ed highlighting the role of youth in defending soil health. He presented several avenues for youth to get involved in scaling soil health:

• Awareness Raising

• Innovation & Technology

• Policy Advocacy

• Community Engagement

• Education

• Science & Research

We reached out to youth partners to learn about their individual approaches to scaling soil health through these thematic action areas.

These are their responses.

The COP28 Presidency today announced that 134 world leaders have signed up to its landmark agriculture, food and climate action declaration.

Download resources from the COP28 Presidency

Ce guide permet à son utilisateur de mettre en œuvre une approche participative de S&E de l’adaptation. Il met l’accent sur la découverte du contexte des risques climatiques et l’évaluation des effets d’adaptation de la GDT en s’appuyant sur les connaissances et l’expérience d’un grand nombre de parties prenantes. Il est principalement axé sur les projets de développement rural, qui veulent optimiser leur efficacité en matière d’adaptation aux effets du changement climatique, élaborer des conseils et des recommandations pour l’utilisation de la GDT dans le contexte de l’adaptation aux changements climatiques et mettre en place de solides chaînes d’impact de l’adaptation. Cette évaluation plus qualitative peut facilement être combinée avec des données supplémentaires, par exemple sur les taux d’adoption des pratiques de GDT en vue de tirer des conclusions quantitatives, telles que le nombre de ménages appliquant des pratiques efficaces d’adaptation.

Le guide a été élaboré par le Programme mondial Protection et réhabilitation des sols pour la sécurité alimentaire (ProSol) mis en œuvre par la Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH sur mandat du Ministère fédéral allemand de la coopération économique et du développement (BMZ). ProSol est mentionné partout à titre d’exemple. Néanmoins, l’approche et les critères peuvent facilement être adaptés au contexte d’autres projets de développement agricole.