What’s next for food, nature, and climate after COP26?
Agriculture and food were not on the menu at COP26 despite being responsible for over a third of greenhouse gas emissions. But there were a series of international deals which start to sow the seeds for international action to reduce the food sector’s emissions and protect the farmers and food workers who are on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Global methane pledge
The Global Methane Pledge, which commits 105 countries to a 30% cut in methane emissions by 2030, is one of the big wins of the UN Climate talks.
But there are some notable gaps in the pledge. Agriculture is not properly included in the deal while being the largest source of methane from human activity. The commitments just focus on technological fixes, such as changing animal feed, rather than shifting to more plant-based diets and cutting food waste which have greater potential to cut emissions according to UN research.
China and India — two big methane emitters — did not sign on to the deal. However, in a joint statement with the US, China committed to develop a National Action Plan for methane — its first methane specific policy — before COP27. A US plan to curb methane released shortly after the pledge also focuses on emissions from gas and oil despite livestock being the largest source of emissions in the country.
The US and China have agreed to meet in the first half of 2022 to discuss actions to tackle methane and the European Commission is set to release its methane strategy proposal in December 2021. The COP26 pledge also includes an annual methane ministerial meeting. Environmental groups will look to these moments as well as other opportunities to increase the ambition of global, regional and national methane plans.
Forests
The critical role that forests play in keeping warming under 1.5 degrees was finally acknowledged in the Glasgow Declaration on Forests and Land Use, a multifaceted deal to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030.
Highlights include:
- Over $19 billion of public and private funding to protect forests and support Indigenous Peoples;
- A partnership between 28 countries — the key producers and consumers of deforestation linked products — to boost trade in sustainably produced commodities;
- A commitment from 30 financial institutions to eliminate investments in deforestation by 2025;
- Finance ministers and central banks recognise the need to ensure financial institutions disclose the scale of their investments in deforestation — a crucial first step towards stopping them altogether.
However, most of the commitments are voluntary so there are no guarantees governments or corporations will deliver. With the Amazon dangerously close to a tipping point beyond which it will be unable to sustain itself, environmental groups are calling for legally binding regulation to end support for deforestation — particularly in the financial sector. In the six years since the Paris Agreement came into force, the top global banks and asset managers have spent $157 billion in financing activities linked to deforestation.
The Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN summit for nature (COP15) is expected to take place in 2022. The extent to which this meeting will build on the forest declaration depends on whether China — the summit host — can get countries to agree on binding targets to halt biodiversity loss or to conserve 30% of their land and oceans by 2030 and find the money to make it happen. That level of ambition for nature protection has been missing so far in the CBD process.
The presidential election in Brazil will also be critical for forest protection with President Jair Bolsonaro running for reelection. His administration has been notorious for rolling back protections for the Amazon and Indigenous Peoples' rights and actively encouraging deforestation.
Food and agriculture
Food and agriculture were largely absent from countries’ climate targets and plans (NDCs) and formal discussions were limited to a slow-moving, non-binding, technical working group (Koronivia dialogue). This is a huge missed opportunity.
Outside the formal negotiations, the US — UAE’s AIM for Climate initiative mobilised $4 billion to support research into measures to cut agricultural emissions and help farmers adapt. However environmental and farming organisations are concerned the funding will be focused on squeezing relatively small emissions cuts from industrial agriculture rather than supporting producers to make the shift to genuinely sustainable agroecological farming methods.
The UK and World Bank launched a policy action pathway for a just rural transition endorsed by 32 countries, the European Union and the African Union. The pathway outlines a range of policy options aimed at building climate-friendly and climate-proof agri-food systems but does not contain any binding commitments.
To ensure agriculture and food systems are part of the solution and not the problem, countries will need to include targets and actions to tackle food emissions in their national climate plans and revised NDCs.
Governments are required to submit their plans next year based on the Glasgow Pact, providing opportunities for climate advocates to continue holding them to account.
