On August 8, 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change, released a new special report, Climate Change and Land. The Report focuses on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. The experts authoring the report  highlighted that the rise in global temperatures, which are linked to increasing pressures on fertile soil, risk jeopardizing food security for the planet. According to the Report, agriculture, forestry and other land use contribute to around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Further, the Report found that approximately 500 million people live in areas that experience desertification, 30 percent of food of food is lost or wasted, and about a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area is subject to human-induced degradation. The Report stated that “actions can be taken in the near-term, based on existing knowledge, to address desertification, land degradation and food security while supporting longer-term responses that enable adaptation and mitigation to climate change. These include actions to build individual and institutional capacity, accelerate knowledge transfer, enhance technology transfer and deployment, enable financial mechanisms, implement early warning systems, undertake risk management and address gaps in implementation and upscaling.”