Preliminary Pages

Foreword

Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to the world’s biosphere and to the global community. It is a threat beyond compare to the planet’s biodiversity, to human health and to the world’s economy. It also represents a unique challenge for plant health. Climate change will affect ecosystems and agricultural production systems throughout the world. It will influence international trade flows of agricultural products and it will change the infectivity, severity and distribution of pests throughout the world. Climate change will, in particular, present an extraordinary trial to the international plant health community and its ability to react in a scientific, decisive and unified manner to these challenges.

The International Year of Plant Health (IYPH) 2020 has been an effort to raise public and political awareness of plant health, and to help governments and the international community address plant health challenges. One important challenge to plant health that must be addressed is the impact of climate change. To this end, the IYPH International Steering Committee commissioned a scientific review of the topic. To strengthen the review’s scientific foundation, the Steering Committee convened a panel of reputable scientists from around the world to write the review, and established a rigorous peer review system to validate its findings. This report details the outcome of the review and has been prepared by lead author Professor Maria Lodovica Gullino (University of Turin, Italy) and a group of ten co-authors representing all FAO regions and with expertise in plant pathology, entomology, herbology, climatology and data analytics. The scientific review was prepared under the auspices of the Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC).

With this scientific review of the impact of climate change on pests and consequently plant health, the IYPH International Steering Committee hopes to provide the scientific background necessary to inform successful discussions on the assessment and management of climate change impacts in international phytosanitary fora. It is the hope of the IYPH International Steering Committee that the review will be an impetus for the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures of the IPPC to discuss and develop international policies to mitigate climate change impacts on plant health. This scientific review is considered a first step in implementing the IPPC Strategic Framework 2020–2030 Development Agenda item “Assessment and management of climate change impacts on plant health”. It is our sincere hope and expectation that the review will elicit a decisive and unified response by the international community to the challenges posed to plant health by climate change.

Yours sincerely,

Ralf Lopian
Chairperson of the International Steering Committee for the IYPH 2020