TheCable

Bill Gates, American billionaire and philanthropist, has announced new stakeholder commitment to tackling climate change, with financial pledges worth over $1 billion.

Speaking at the Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday, Gates said his foundation was committing $310 million over three years to help farmers adapt in the face of climate change.

“Today, I am happy to announce a number of new commitments; a coalition that includes the European Commission, Netherlands, UK, World Bank, Switzerland, and Sweden has promised to deliver over $791m to support smallholder farmers adapt to climate change,” Gates said.

“Additionally, Germany is committing to build the resilience of an additional 60 million smallholder farmers. These commitments include $652m over three years for a range of agriculture research and development initiatives carried out across the CG system.

“As part of this, our foundation is pledging $310m over the next three years for CG. We would increasingly support the CG shared agenda to tackle climate change and make food production in the developing world more productive.”

The multi-billionaire said “investment in CGIAR has proven to be highly cost-effective, generating returns of up to $17 for every dollar invested, with significant economic benefit for both producers and consumers”.

Climate change will impact every one of the 7 billion people

Gates who said he was honored to be representing the Global Commission on Adaptation at the summit said “the adaptation has not received as much attention as mitigation, and yet it is equally important”.

“We (the commission) were formed to galvanise global action, to make sure that most of the world vulnerable population are allowed to adapt as much as possible to the climate change they would face,” Gates said.

“Climate change will impact every one of the seven billion people on the planet but the hardest hit will be the world’s most vulnerable people, like the 500 million farming families in places like sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

“Ironically these are the people who did the least to cause climate change. Climate change will reduce their harvest and strain the global food system, and at the same time, the global food demand will increase by over 60 percent mid-century.

“The world can still prevent the absolute worse effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing new technologies and source of energy.

“The effects of rising temperatures are already underway and even in the best case of lowered emissions, we have to help people adapt. Today we are announcing the launch of the first actual track of the global commission on adaption focused on food and agriculture.

“Over the next year, the commission will focus on scaling up support to farmers in five areas including expanding coverage, advisory services,  expanding access to farmer financing and insurance, adopting innovations and agro-ecological practices, and implementing policies which incentivises resilience.

“The final area is increasing investment in R&D (research and development) and doubling investment in the CGIAR System. The CGIAR system holds the world’s largest, most advanced network of crop breeders and it prioritises the need of smallholder farmers while helping all farmers in the world.”

The Global Commission on Adaptation is co-chaired by Bill Gates; former UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon; and incoming IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva.