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On 23 September 2014 in New York, global leaders from Government, business, finance and civil society came together to announce their commitment for action to limit global temperature increases. 
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The commitment statements presented will help inform a global agreement for climate action and fall into eight areas, one of which is Agriculture. The issues as presented through the agriculture stream were: 
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<ul>
	<li>The need to increase food production by at least 60 per cent by 2050 to provide food security for 9 billion people.&#160;</li>
	<li>The impact of climate change on food security, supply and price.&#160;</li>
	<li>&#160;The critical need for understanding and uptake of sustainable agricultural practices due to current emissions levels from agriculture and land use change (one quarter or all GHG emissions).</li>
</ul>
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The plan of action for agriculture promoted at the meeting is the development of a new voluntary international initiative to &quot;enable more farmers worldwide to practice climate-smart agriculture.&quot; 
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<p class="h3 h5 h3">
Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture 
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<p>
There is a new international initiative on the block: the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) held its inaugural meeting prior to the UN Climate Summit in New York last month. 
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The aim of the CSA is to &quot;promote greater international engagement on ways to transform agriculture in the face of climate change.&quot; 
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The CSA seeks to broker international relationships in three areas: 
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<ul>
	<li>sustainable improvements in productivity;</li>
	<li>building resilience; and&#160;</li>
	<li>reducing and removing agricultural greenhouse gases.</li>
</ul>
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The CSA will identify priorities for action according to needs and priorities of members. <br />
During its initial phase, the CSA will focus on increasing and promoting knowledge of available technologies and practices; encouraging policy framework for implementation of government policy to improve uptake of these; understanding limitations of current research and brokering new international research and information sharing to fill these research gaps. 
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The CSA is hosted by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and is not to be confused with the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), an initiative championed by New Zealand that started in 2009, with the aim of reducing the emissions intensity of agricultural production while supporting food security. Work is underway to ensure the two initiatives can complement each other to deliver on common goals. 
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Check on progress of the GRA <a href="newsletter.html">HERE</a>. 
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<strong>About Climate Summit 2014</strong> 
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<ul>
	<li>The Climate Summit was hosted by United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon as a step towards developing a global agreement for advancing climate change action. </li>
	<li>A draft global agreement will be presented in Lima in December 2014. </li>
	<li>The Summit is not part of the UNFCCC negotiating process.</li>
</ul>
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<strong>Links</strong> 
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<p>
Read United Nations press statement at <a href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/AGRICULTURE-PR.pdf">http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/AGRICULTURE-PR.pdf</a> 
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Read all UN Climate Summit announcements at <a href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/action-areas/">http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/action-areas/</a> &#160; 
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