In one year, membership in the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate nearly quadrupled, while funding for the project doubled to $8 billion, said the Biden administration. AIM for climate, launched at COP26, intends to increase agricultural production and incomes worldwide, while adapting to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States will host the AIM for Climate summit on May 8-10, 2023, in Washington. The initiative has 275 partners “to drive more rapid and transformative climate action by increasing investment and support for climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation,” said the White House.
President Biden was to speak at COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, on Friday.
In a fact sheet, the White House announced on Tuesday a “road map for nature-based solutions” to climate change that also supported local economies. “This marks the first time the United States has developed a strategy to scale up nature-based solutions,” said the administration. Biden has set a target of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by the end of this decade, compared to 2005 levels, to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 and to increase local resilience to extreme weather and other effects of global warming.
Congress has allotted $20 billion for climate mitigation as part of USDA soil and water conservation programs. The fact sheet said programs such as conservation easements would aid in the restoration of carbon-rich wetlands and preservation of grasslands at risk of losing carbon and habitat through conversion to cropland.