Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, will participate in a major summit on climate in the US next month.
The event is part of the Agriculture Innovation Mission (AIM) for Climate initiative, which brings together partners from across the world to drive rapid transformation towards climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and food systems innovation.
The initiative is led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the US, supported by 47 other countries including Ireland.
Climate summit
AIM for Climate was launched at COP26 by US President Joe Biden with an initial investment of $4 billion from partners, which has more than doubled to over $8 billion as of COP27.
The initiative is organising the AIM for Climate Summit taking place on May 8-10, 2023, in Washington D.C, to explore and unlock innovations in CSA by multi-sector partners.
Minister Martin Heydon will be in attendance along with other high-profile agriculture/climate ministers, heads of private/public sector organisations including John Kerry (US Climate Envoy); former US vice-president Al Gore; Secretary Tom Vilsack, US agriculture minister, Her Excellency Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment.
Also speaking at the event will be EU agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski and Rodrigo Santos, president of Bayer’s Crop Science Division.
Senior research officer with Teagasc, Karen Daly will participate in a ‘breakout session’ at the event with Commissioner Wojciechowski and Minister Heydon and others from Denmark and The Netherlands.
The session will centre around ‘A Mission for Soil Health to Address Climate Change: Experiences from across the EU’.
The researcher will also join Minister Heydon for another ‘breakout session’ about Ireland’s Agri-Food Sector Transformation Deep Demonstration
The event will also discuss the crucial role of women in science and how science and research can contribute to addressing the challenges of climate change and food insecurity.
According to the organisers, at COP27, over $1 billion of its investments came from some of the initiative’s non-governmental partners who launched ‘Innovation Sprints’.
This campaign involved accelerated efforts to tackle climate change across four areas: Methane reduction; emerging technology; smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries; and agroecological research.