(Updated 5 August 2009)

Convenor Heikki Sirviö Yara Suomi Finland

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Web Module Climate Change

In order to allow the fertilizer industry to convey its key messages in pertinent policy debates and to the expert bodies that provide data, IFA has established a Task Force on Climate Change.The main output of the Task Force is IFA's white paper, Fertilizers, Climate Change and Enhancing Agricultural Productivity Sustainably .

The role of this group is to:

• Analyze the constellation of institutions involved in international climate change policy;
• Assess major sources of greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacture, distribution and use of fertilizers as well as increasing knowledge about how fertilizers can contribute to mitigation (i.e. through carbon sequestration);
• Take stock of current fertilizer industry responses to climate change and promote best practices throughout the value chain;
• Determine which data and information the fertilizer industry should inject into the debate;
• Develop a roadmap for the fertilizer industry’s involvement in the run-up to the 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009;
• Represent the fertilizer industry at the most relevant meetings of international organizations and global business networks dealing with climate change.

Since the turn of the millennium, IFA has undertaken a number of activities related to climate change within context of its mission to promote responsible and efficient fertilizer production and use. Today, discussion about climate change and debate on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are high on everyone’s agenda. In December 2007, governments adopted the Bali Roadmap, a two-year process to finalize the multilateral framework addressing climate change post-2012 (when the Kyoto Protocol expires). Through IFA, the fertilizer industry needs a coordinated approach to engaging in these debates in order to ensure that decision-makers refer to accurate, recent and science-based information about how fertilizers relate to climate change, both with regard to emissions from the sector and to its contribution to mitigation and adaptation.

The Task Force will remain in activity at least until UNFCCC's COP15 in Copenhagen (December 2009).