A low-hanging fruit in climate action?
Infusing the NDCs with a holistic food systems approach is a critical political opportunity that must be seized by climate, nature, and food systems advocates alike.
When it comes to climate action, there is an obvious solution that global leaders and policymakers must no longer overlook. It involves our food systems — how what we eat is produced, distributed, sold, and disposed of; how diets effect health; the relationship between producers and policy.
Unsustainable practices that underpin today’s industrialized food system — like intensive livestock and commodity crop production, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, antibiotic overuse, long commodity supply chains — negatively impact human, animal, and ecological health.
The industrialized food system is one of the greatest drivers of environmental degradation, and causes unprecedented biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, water shortages, and human displacement each year.
Despite its major toll on the climate, a holistic food systems approach is largely absent in the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) plans of the countries gathered in Glasgow. The NDCs are a strategic opportunity to integrate countries' climate-related targets with food systems, across government policies and programs.
This integration is critical to unlock GHG emission mitigation and reduction efforts necessary to save our planet and ourselves — estimates suggest that action on food systems could deliver 20% of global emissions reductions needed by 2050.
It is possible. To complement a forthcoming analysis of 14 country NDC plans, the Global Alliance for the Future of Food identified initiatives that show how food systems provide brilliant solutions to the great climate challenges we face.
In Latin America, the Colombia Food and Land use Coalition (FOLU) has brought together entrepreneurs, investors, government agencies, and other stakeholders to develop national and regional roadmaps to guide the country’s food and land use policies.
Their efforts led to the creation of a sustainable cattle ranching program funded by the UK government and it has restored 28,000 hectares of degraded land — an area about 1.5 times the size of Glasgow — by providing technical assistance for farmers. This has increased local biodiversity and protected standing forests.
Colombia’s NDC also displays ambitious set of agroecological measures and it’s proof that environmental protection and pocketbook go hand-in-hand as it works to reduce its GHG emissions by 51 percent by 2030.
In Bangladesh, non-profit research and innovation institution WorldFish has adopted a community-based approach where fisherfolk are trained to build systems that retain water in the country’s lowland rice fields, areas central to rice and fish production.
These actions have mitigated GHG emissions from rice production by 30 to 70 percent without affecting yield. With food production being the greatest contributor to Bangladesh’s GHG emissions and the government prioritizing adaptation over mitigation measures, scaling projects like that of WorldFish could help the country achieve climate resilience.
Finally, in the UK, young food ambassadors, The Food Foundation, and a well-known footballer came together to create the End Child Food Poverty Campaign. The campaign tackles dietary inequalities, food insecurity among children, and advocates for diets that include more fruits and vegetables and less meat — actions that would reduce GHG emissions and should be key components in the UK’s own NDC plan.
Transformative action is possible in countries of varied geographies, social contexts, and economic circumstances. These actions and others must be accelerated, and the NDCs are a strategic way to do that.
COP26 is an opportunity to harness the momentum of other events this year, like the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), and lay the groundwork to influence the next NDCs due in 2025. The UN Secretary General António Guterres has pledged to revisit progress on UNFSS commitments every two years and the first review is expected to coincide with the UNFCCC’s Global Stocktake towards the Paris Agreement in 2023. The second will take place in 2025 when the next round of NDCs are due.
There’s a lot of work to do between now and then. New FOLU research confirms that the world’s largest emitters are still showing weak commitments in their NDCs to reduce emissions and increase carbon sinks in the food and land sector.
Infusing the NDC action plans with a holistic food systems approach crosses borders, disciplines, and socio-economic divides. It’s a critical political opportunity that must be seized by climate, nature, and food systems advocates alike.
The Global Alliance for the Future of Food
Website: https://futureoffood.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/futureoffoodorg
