This think piece by Sayed Azam-Ali, OBE, is written as a reflection on the seventh instalment in the GFAR Talks webinar series on the topic: “The UN Food Systems Summit – progress and pitfalls on science informed actions at national and global levels”.
GFAR Talks is a showcase for debate on challenging and provocative topics related to agrifood system transformation, climate change and innovations in agriculture.
In 2008, spikes in food prices coincided with over 60 food riots in 30 countries. In 2010 and 2011, further price hikes were linked with more food riots, widespread protests and government changes that led to what became known as the `the Arab Spring’. Sudden changes in the availability and cost of food make food-importing countries with widespread poverty particularly vulnerable to public unrest but, since human behaviour is unpredictable, the exact locations, timing and extent of food riots are difficult to predict. However, since the 2011 food riots, a pandemic, disrupted supply chains and wars in Europe and the Middle-East have brought further pressures on the availability, accessibility and cost of food around the world. We have been warned.
In December 2023, the United Nations annual climate change conference, also known as the ‘Conference of the Parties’ or ‘COP’, will bring governments and negotiators together to discuss and attempt to agree on actions to address climate change. The negotiating parties include those governments that have signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and/or the Paris Agreement. The first COP of UNFCCC was held in Berlin, Germany, in 1995. The 28th COP will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). It will include the first Global Stocktake, where States assess progress and agree actions towards the goals set in the Paris Agreement. Our awareness of climate change is not new. Since the late 19th century scientists have recognized that human activities that emit greenhouse gases can change the climate. In recent decades, there has been a plethora of conferences and agreements to address the causes and consequences of climate change. These include the first world climate conference in 1979, the First Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report in 1990, the First UN Climate Conference in 1995, the launch of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, the Paris Agreement in 2015 and the Glasgow Climate Pact in 2021. Have any of these conferences, agreements, pacts and accords made any difference to the human behaviours that cause climate change? The evidence is not encouraging. In the last six decades, atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen from below 320 to above 420 parts per million and the average global temperature has increased by more than 1°C above the pre-industrial baseline. Indeed, on 17 November, 2023, the global average surface temperature was more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. Whilst this rise may be temporary, it is nonetheless alarming.
So, why have these commitments to addressing the causes of climate change had such little impact? Perhaps we have overlooked its principal cause – our globalised food system. Food and land use systems are responsible for around one third of global greenhouse gas emissions and, when we add its contributions to the carbon emissions of industrial and transport systems, the food system is the largest single cause of climate change. However, until now, attempts to address climate change and transform the food system have run on parallel tracks. Unlike climate change, there has never been an annual `COP for Food’ where world leaders and negotiators meet to agree on common actions to address the issues of food and nutritional security. The first World Food
Conference was held in Rome in 1974 and since then World Summits on Food or Food Security have been held in 1996, 2002, 2009. In 2021 the World Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) called for the need to transform food systems so that, as well as contributing to better nutrition and health, they do less harm to the planet. After the summit, 119 countries submitted national pathways towards transforming their food systems. However, they are not moving fast enough towards this goal. In 2023, the UN Food Systems Summit+2 (FSS+2), issued an urgent Call to Action to accelerate food systems transformation, identify new opportunities for collaboration and strategies for how transformed food systems can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of which SDG2 (Zero Hunger and Improved Nutrition) and SDG15 (Climate Action) relate specifically to food and climate.
Until now food has largely been ignored in UNFCCC deliberations and COPs. However, for the first time, the UAE, in its role as President, has put the relationship between food and climate at the heart of COP28. The COP28 Food Systems and Agriculture Agenda was launched by the COP28 presidency and the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub in July, 2023. It calls on countries to align their national food systems and agricultural policies with nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs), and to include targets for food system decarbonization into these and their national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs).
The global food system is both a cause and a victim of climate change but those causing it and those suffering from it are not the same. Whilst having done little or nothing to cause it, the rural poor, smallholder farmers and marginalised and indigenous communities around the world are particularly exposed to the consequences of climate change. At the World Climate Action Summit that will open COP28 in Dubai on 30 November, 2023, leaders of all 193 nations will be invited to endorse an ‘Emirates Declaration on Resilient Food Systems, Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Action.’ It is crucial that farmers, indigenous peoples and local communities, especially women and youth, are empowered by the declaration to take actions that will transform their own food systems – when it comes to living in and adapting to changing and marginal environments it is they not us who are the experts. The role of scientists, philanthropists, the private sector, financial institutions and international agencies should be to provide the resources, tools and technologies to support this transformation. Only by taking radical actions to transform the food system can we hope to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement, deliver the SDGs and provide a lasting legacy for COP28.
Watch the recording of the seventh GFAR Talks webinar, featuring Joachim von Braun (Bonn University) and Gabriela Quiroga Gilardoni (Agricord).
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