“Climate-smart agriculture”, at the service of carbon finance and multinational corporations

The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture was launched on September 2014, at the UN Climate Summit in New York. This alliance is the outcome of years of determination by FAO and the World Bank to get the concept of “climate-smart agriculture” onto the international agenda, together with the ideological context and policies it implies. Behind the reasonable and virtuous image of a climatically benign agriculture, priority is being given to approaches like biotechnology and offsets for greenhouse gas emissions, rather than to the knowledge and experience of small-scale farmers who protect the environment and climate. The alliance is opposed by the vast majority of NGOs and social movements, including La Via Campesina, the largest international movement of small-scale farmers. ATTAC-France and the French peasant organization Confédération Paysanne have prepared a document analyzing this new concept, available (in French) at:                https://france.attac.org/nos-publications/notes-et-rapports-37/article/la-climate-smart-agriculture-une