Good Day BIO: What happened at COP27

We’re starting the short week with a recap of what happened at COP27 and what you need to know about COVID-19 (and other viruses) as the holiday season begins. (678 words, 3 minutes, 23 seconds)

What happened at COP27

The U.N.’s Climate Change Conference ended early Sunday—here’s what happened and the path for biotech moving forward.

A historic funding agreement: Nearly 200 countries agreed to establish a “loss and damage fund” to help vulnerable countries hit by climate disasters; 24 countries will “work out the finer details of the fund over the next year,” per The New York Times.

But: “While the new climate agreement deals with the damages from global warming, it does far less to address the greenhouse gas emissions that are the root cause of the crisis. To keep warming at relatively safe levels, experts say, all nations must slash their emissions much more rapidly,” explains The New York Times.

More countries joined the methane pledge,launched in Glasgow last year, to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Now, more than 150 countries have signed the pledge.

What about food security? COP27 ended with a draft decision on agriculture and food security, acknowledging the role of farmers, especially smallholders, in “sustainable land management” and “the need to scale up the implementation of best practices, innovations, and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems.”

We’ll say it again: we need biotechnology to address and mitigate the impact of climate change and ensure the sustainability and availability of food and energy.

To achieve all of these goals, there's a role for biotech—from turning food waste and biomass into more sustainable fuels, to breeding climate-resilient crops and food animals, to developing animal feed that can reduce methane emissions.

Catch up on the Bio.News COP27 coverage:

• What to know about COP27
• Adoption of regenerative farming must ‘triple,’ say top food companies
• ‘Adapt or starve’: COP27 Adaptation and Agriculture Day
• Cows are stressed by heat – and we need to advance animal biotech solutions

Black Coalition Against COVID: ‘This pandemic is not over’

Last week, the Black Coalition Against COVID held a town hall (sponsored by several BIO members) about COVID-19 and the importance of keeping communities safe during the first holiday season out of full or partial lockdown.

The key takeaway: “This pandemic is not over, and our collective responsibility to protect and preserve the health of our community, especially our seniors and the vulnerable among us, is not over either,” said Dr. Reed Tuckson, co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID (BCAC).

Uptake of updated boosters is still too low, especially among communities of color, said White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha: “While about 1 in 3 seniors who are white have gotten the [updated] vaccine, among Black seniors, the number is more like 1 in 6.”

The message matters: “There was a lot of concern about the safety of the COVID vaccine. And a corollary to that, of course, was the misinformation that we saw,” said physician and health educator Dr. Melissa Clarke earlier in the event. “But we’ve learned that the vaccines are safe, that they can certainly prevent the worst outcomes from COVID-19—hospitalization and death—and that the latest boosters can provide people with an extra measure of protection.”

But it’s not just COVID—influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are also circulating and threatening communities. Because symptoms can overlap, testing is important, said the CDC’s Dr. Barbara McMahon.

Learn more and watch the whole discussion on Bio.News.

More Health Care News:

iBIO: State of Illinois launches $5 million grant match program to spur innovation in cutting-edge technologies
“Governor Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) [Friday] announced $5 million in state-funded matching grants for businesses who have received federal funding through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.” 

Pfizer: Pfizer and BioNTech report new data on Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster demonstrating improved immune response
“One month after a 30-µg booster dose of the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, neutralizing antibody titers against emerging Omicron sublineages increased 3.2- to 4.8-fold compared to the companies’ original COVID-19 vaccine.”

President Biden’s Monday: After celebrating his 80th birthday, today he’ll pardon the National Thanksgiving Turkeys, then head to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina for a pre-Thanksgiving meal with troops and their families.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: Thanksgiving recess.