By Sebastian Osborn, Global Policy Manager at Mercy For Animals

The 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 28) is set to conclude its first-ever Global Stocktake (GST) – a comprehensive process that will assess our progress towards the goals set out in the Paris Agreement on climate change and inform our next steps. Current climate actions are not nearly enough to keep global warming to 1.5°C or to protect people and the environment from climate change. However, the gaps highlighted and guidance given at the GST can shape future climate action and determine its success. Amongst many critical issues – one that demands particular attention is our approach to food and climate.

Food and climate action

The importance and urgency of climate action in the area of food systems has become increasingly clear. In its recent sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that “even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, food system emissions alone would jeopardize the achievement of the 1.5ºC target.” At the same time, climate change is already contributing to record levels of food insecurity and hunger.

Despite this, climate action in the food sector has lagged far behind. While Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) almost universally include some actions related to agriculture, these frequently focus, directly or indirectly, on policies involving limited changes to practices on farm, such as irrigation practices or manure management, while frequently missing out on some of the most critical areas for action. For example, less than two dozen of the 193 NDCs contain any provisions related to food loss and waste, which is responsible for around three times the global emissions of air travel. NDCs addressing shifts to healthier and more sustainable dietary patterns rank even fewer in numbers. This is true despite the IPCC clearly stating that diet shift, enabled by supporting policy and socio-cultural change, is the single most impactful demand-side mitigation strategy to “shift” emissions.

Under the formal agenda at the UNFCCC, the agriculture workstream, now known as the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security (SSJW), has made important technical contributions. However, its limited scope has principally focused, to-date, on providing a forum for discussions and information sharing on niche elements of production such as nutrient management – rather than taking on systemic transformations that are needed.

Barriers to action on food

Although climate action in the area of food systems is necessary, it is also important to navigate the concerns and complexities that have caused some UNFCCC parties to hesitate in the past.

First, climate finance to enable action on food has been dramatically lacking. The IPCC has demonstrated that agriculture, forest and land use (AFOLU) is the sector least supported by climate mitigation finance relative to its needs, requiring ten to 31 times more investment. This glaring gap can be clearly witnessed with food systems as a whole receiving only 3% of public climate finance despite contributing one-third of global emissions.

Additionally, the right actions to create climate-friendly food systems can vary widely between countries, raising concerns that international guidance without appropriate nuance could create pressures to implement policies that fail to fit national contexts. In the past, we have seen that even well-intentioned agricultural policies and supports, such as capacity-enhancing fisheries subsidies, when not considered holistically, can have repercussions for food security and nutrition, as well as livelihoods. An extensive report in 2021 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found that current agriculture support is largely harmful to the environment, health, and the livelihoods of women and smallholders. A World Bank report in 2023 reached similar conclusions, noting that agricultural subsidies are “rarely pro-poor.”

Reasons for optimism

Although it is important to consider the risks of misdirected policies, we should also be aware of the potential held within well-designed, context-appropriate policies and action plans. The political momentum on food has never been bigger, with the COP 28 incoming Presidency calling on governments to keep food and agriculture central to their climate action efforts.

Through the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, over 100 countries developed “national pathways” for sustainable food systems. The number of NDCs addressing the topic of food loss and waste has risen from two to 21. We are seeing this momentum carry through into the GST.

Under the GST, the EU, the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), and the UK have all highlighted the importance of healthy sustainable diets. The EU and AILAC also highlighted the importance of reducing food loss and waste, joined by China. Further, a number of submissions, representing 135 parties in total, highlighted the need for sustainable consumption to achieve climate goals.

As the EAT-Lancet Commission’s landmark report notes, “[f]ood is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth.” We are now seeing the political momentum that could bring this to life.

Moving forward

In the GST outcome, parties will need to harness this political momentum. This will require three things to be a success.

First, in line with science, the GST outcome must recognize that addressing all aspects of the food system – from land use through food waste – is necessary. Interventions on either the supply or demand side alone cannot deliver sufficient results and can even be counterproductive.

Second, parties must commit to global shifts towards more sustainable food consumption patterns. Achieving this will require recognizing that these shifts mean different things in different countries. As an example, in high-income countries (HICs), where average meat consumption is multiple times in excess of recommended limits, shifts towards more plant-based diets will be essential. On the other hand, in many developing countries, other solutions such as improving social safety nets will be critical.

Third, the GST outcome must recognize that ambition must be matched with thoughtfulness, as food systems are intersectional and diverse, and impact a wide array of issues. While arguments are made that actions such as replacing smallholders with larger farms or outfitting cows with masks can yield efficiency gains, more comprehensive considerations of impacts will allow us to realize that these do not represent positive food systems progress as a whole.

To achieve these objectives, parties will need to be ambitious and driven, avoiding resorting to weak platitudes alone. For example, an acknowledgement that sustainable agriculture can contribute towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement would likely be politically undemanding, far more is needed. Parties must also be vigilant to avoid succumbing to distractions like recent suggestions that issues of the food system can be fixed through increasing global production and consumption of so-called “blue foods.” By referring to the best available science, embodied in IPCC AR6, parties can quickly note the danger this poses to the environment as well as the food security and livelihoods of the most vulnerable.

We need to course correct and deliver food systems transformation in a way that is ambitious, comprehensive, and most importantly, aligned with science and justice. We have a level of political momentum and convergence towards this that is unprecedented. Negotiating the text of the GST political outcome will be difficult, but we have seen broad support for language that can deliver the direction we need. We must hope that the world’s leaders can rise to the challenge.