The 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Paris (France) from 30th November to 12th December 2015. More than 45,000 representatives of the 195 parties attended the event. The result of the conference was a global agreement on the reduction of climate change aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (°C), compared to pre-industrial levels, and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.
In this context and within the COP21 program, the session called "Soil Fertility and Climate Change: the challenge of Conservation Agriculture in Developing Countries" was held in "Climate Generation Areas" on 5th December. Various academic and agricultural professionals had the opportunity to show the audience their knowledge and experience related to Conservation Agriculture, as one of the strategies for mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change.
The project Life+Climagri was presented during one of the scheduled presentations, which focused on some cases of successful implementation of these practices in Europe. First, Dr. Gottlieb Basch, from the University of Évora and the president of the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF), revealed all the benefits Conservation Agriculture has on climate change mitigation and adaptation of crops to its effects through carbon sequestration and improvement of soil water status. Then the project coordinator, Emilio Gonzalez, executive director of AEAC.SV and general secretary of the ECAF, explained and outlined the objectives of the project, the action plan and expected results, emphasizing that Conservation Agriculture is one of the best practices used to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Hopefully, based on the results achieved in the Life+Climagri project and objectives set in the agreement finally reached at COP21, a firm commitment from the agricultural sector will be contributed by the government for such practices. In this regard, the knowledge generated in the project, will undoubtedly provide technical support for legislative measures taken by each member state.
