WWF calls for urgent action to secure nature-positive, net-zero emissions world

DAVOS, Switzerland, May 25 (Xinhua) -- World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International on Wednesday called for urgent action to secure a nature-positive and net-zero emissions world at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2022 here, while agriculture giant Syngenta Group emphasized that science, technology and regenerative agriculture could help tackle some of the challenges.

As nearly 2,500 global leaders from business, politics, civil society and the media are meeting in the Swiss mountain town this week, WWF called on them to accelerate their action to tackle climate and nature crises.

Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, issued a stark warning in a press release. "While it is important to recognize the progress that has been made on key environmental issues in the last year, the world remains on course for environmental catastrophe unless it takes urgent and unprecedented action to address the climate and nature crises."

"In the face of growing political and economic instability, leaders meeting at Davos must balance short-term responses with the long-term actions needed to increase resilience and secure a liveable planet for future generations," he said.

"This means urgently increasing the ambition of their climate targets, transitioning to sustainable food systems, and stepping up efforts to conserve the ecosystems and biodiversity left on the planet, while restoring what's possible. This year, world leaders have an unmissable chance to embrace a 'Paris-style' agreement to tackle our escalating nature crisis and make a fairer, nature-positive and food-secure world a reality."

WWF warned that global greenhouse emissions are returning to sky-high levels last seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, while deforestation remains alarmingly high, and the global extinction crisis continues unabated.

The WEF in Davos takes place ahead of Stockholm+50, an international meeting convened by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 2-3. It aims to commemorate the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and celebrate 50 years of global environmental action.

According to a UN report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), more than one million species are now threatened with extinction.

Joao Campari, leader of WWF's Global Food Practice, said: "On top of the nature and climate crises, we are facing an escalating food security crisis. As leaders grapple with shocks and stresses, and justifiably focus on securing food supplies, we must ensure building sustainable and resilient food systems remains a long-term priority. If not, we will face even more frequent and more damaging crises."

"The way we produce and consume food is both the biggest driver of nature loss and a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Adopting nature-positive food production practices is a win-win for people and the planet and should be a priority for forward-looking countries and businesses," Campari added.

According to the WWF's "The Living Planet Report 2020," food systems are responsible for 80 percent of deforestation and generate around 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

In the press statement, WWF wrote that natural disasters caused by climate change and human ecosystem disruption cost more than 300 billion U.S. dollars per year.

"Climate-smart growth could deliver at least 26 trillion U.S. dollars in economic benefits through to 2030, and a move to more sustainable agriculture, combined with forest protection, could deliver over 2 trillion U.S. dollars per year," it said.

Erik Fyrwald, chief executive officer (CEO) of Syngenta Group, one of the world's leading agricultural innovation and technology companies, said: "When it comes to food, humanity faces an epochal challenge. With globally stagnating arable land, it is of utmost importance to safely supply a rapidly growing global population with high-quality food while protecting biodiversity and the climate."

The Swiss company, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, is owned by the Chinese chemical company ChemChina.

"Our vision is regenerative agriculture with higher land productivity which means more food produced on less land so more land is returned to nature and we stop deforestation," Fyrwald said. "We are contributing to a reduction of agriculture greenhouse gas emissions, aspiring to go from 12 percent of total global emissions today to net-zero or even net-positive."