IPCC Report as a call for action

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sent an alarming message out into the world. In its latest special report on Climate Change and Land, the IPCC warns about food scarcity as a consequence of global warming. “This report addresses policymakers not only as a wake-up call, but also as a call for action. Action, which can only be defined as collaboration”, so Secretary General of the Alpine Convention Alenka Smerkolj.

The IPCC report points to the fact that land is already under growing human pressure and that climate change is adding to these pressures. The newly established Soil Protection Working Group of the Alpine Convention recognizes the key role of healthy soils – e.g. for climate change mitigation, biodiversity preservation and food security. This Working Group aims at contributing to the goal of “reducing quantitative and qualitative soil damage, in particular by applying agricultural and forestry methods which do not harm the soil, through minimum interference with soil and land, control of erosion and the restriction of soil sealing”,  as stipulated in art. 2(d) of the Alpine Convention. Alenka Smerkolj: “This challenge demands a close collaboration of all Alpine partners and stakeholders - scientists, consumers, producers, farmers and the industry – everybody needs to be involved.”.  

Within the scope of the Declaration on Climate Change, the Alpine Climate Board started a thorough process about how the Alpine region can overcome obstacles in the fight against climate change and which measures could contribute to climate change adaptation and climate mitigation. The first results of this process are bundled in the publication “Climate-neutral and Climate-resilient Alps 2050”. “The transnational partners to act in prompt reply to reports like the one of the IPCC is a conditio sine qua non for the preservation of land-based ecosystems and of a sustainable living environment for the generations to come”, so concludes Alenka Smerkolj. 

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