Anti-Hunger Laws Need to Connect to Paris Agreement on Climate Change

10 Nov 2016 --- Latin American, Caribbean, Spanish and African legislators gathered for the seventh Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) forum against world hunger to promote actions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

More than 100 lawmakers highlighted the crucial need to act against the effects of climate change by adopting certain legislation during the opening of the seventh Forum of the Parliamentary Front against Hunger in Mexico City (Nov 9 - 11)

The Parliamentary fronts against hunger are key to enforcing the commitments of the Paris Agreements and the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22), especially those closely related to the fight against hunger and malnutrition, according to FAO.

"Parliaments can make an important contribution to the fight against climate change by adjusting national laws to international standards and facilitating the implementation of global agreements," says Tito Diaz, FAO’s Coordinator for Mesoamerica.

On top of that, Parliamentarians can ensure budgets and frameworks adapt to include climate change requirements that are connected to anti-hunger policies.

Parliaments in Latin America and the Caribbean are currently working on a Model Law on Climate Change and Food and Nutrition Security, and the Central American Parliament is also working on a framework law.

"It is necessary to work for a new agri-food model that feeds our whole population in a healthy and sustainable way, contributing also to the adaptation to climate change and its mitigation", said the general coordinator of the Parliamentary Front against Hunger, María Augusta Calle.

Eradicating Hunger

Seven years since the very first Forum of its kind, Parliamentarians Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean puts human right to food at the top of the regional political agendas, in a bid to wipe out hunger across these regions.

Recently, Honduras and the Dominican Republic approved their respective food security and right to food laws, while El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica and Colombia advanced the discussions of draft laws on the same subject.

Blanca Alcalá, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (PARLATINO), says there will soon be a regional model law on family farming which has already been approved at committee level. During the forum, she stressed that parliamentary fronts are developing a conceptual proposal to define food sovereignty, based on the legislative experiences of fifteen countries in the region.

The Plan of Food Security, Nutrition and Hunger Eradication of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) has pledged to eradicate malnutrition in the region by 2025.

Also during the forum the FAO’s special ambassador for the International Year of Pulses, Patricia Juárez, presented the positive effects of legumes in the fight against climate change and hunger. She explained how legumes fix nitrogen in the soil, improving their health and allowing for less use of fertilizers and agrochemicals. In 2014, 85 million hectares of legumes were planted worldwide, which set three to six tons of nitrogen. As a result, legumes contribute to the rational use of fertilizers, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions.