International Fresh Produce Association will represent produce and floral business in climate negotiations held to progress UNFCC
The CEO of the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), Cathy Burns, has revealed that the group has been granted observer status to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).
Speaking during a State of the Industry keynote session at the IFPA’s Global Produce & Floral Show in Atlanta, Burns said the designation would allow it to represent the fresh produce and floral community in climate negotiations.
IFPA vice-president of sustainability Tamara Muruetagoiena will serve as the organisation’s representative on the UNFCC.
“Climate change is a top concern for our members and it’s an incredible honor that IFPA’s work in sustainability and climate-smart agriculture has resulted in the association being granted this status by the United Nations,” Burns said.
“The fresh produce and floral community is part of the solution through our commitment to climate-smart agriculture practices, and we will ensure our voice is heard to influence outcomes in global forums such as the UNFCC and COP29.”
Included within the UNFCC are the 2015 Paris Agreement and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In sum, Burns noted, these agreements are tasked with stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a timeframe which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.
Muruetagoiena has led many of IFPA’s sustainability efforts. As chair of an environmental working group within the Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative, she helped to develop benchmarking environmental standards that were released to the fresh produce and floral sector earlier this year.
“Sustainability has always been a cornerstone of my professional career and I am humbled to have this opportunity to represent IFPA,” Muruetagoiena commented. “We are participating in COP29 next month in Azerbaijan to ensure our industry is represented at the highest global meeting discussing climate change.”
It was during last year’s COP where agriculture was first included in the UN’s climate plans.
IFPA research has found that failure to act on climate and extreme weather are the top two global threats with the highest potential to damage societies, economies, and the planet.
The climate-resilient future study noted that a global mean temperature rise in the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C by the end of the century would agriculture far beyond manageable thresholds.
In early December, the association will hold special field trials in California as part of its USDA grant-funded programme A Vibrant Future, which it said incentivises speciality crop growers to adopt climate-smart production to establish a consumer-driven, climate-smart market for fruits and vegetables grown using those improved practices.
