25 November 2025
Briefing
DIGEST: Food Systems make it to COP
COP30 in Belém has wrapped, and one thing is clear: food systems finally moved from the sidelines to centre stage at UN climate talks. This was the first COP where agriculture and food were treated as core climate priorities – for emissions, and also for hunger, biodiversity, and supporting vulnerable communities. The question now is whether historic declarations translate to actual implementation.
Here’s what emerged…
QUICK TAKE
- 🚜 Food systems moved to centre stage: Brazil made ‘Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems’ one of six COP30 priorities – the strongest inclusion of food systems in UN climate talks to date.
- 📜 Climate action was formally linked to ending hunger and poverty: 43 countries + the EU signed the Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and People-Centered Climate Action, committing to link climate action with ending hunger and poverty, with $300bn/year pledged by 2035 for food security and adaptation.
- 🐘 Diet remains off the table in national commitments: Most national climate plans still omit demand-side measures like dietary change, even though IPCC research shows this could deliver emissions cuts equal to production improvements.
- 👩🏾🌾 Implementation was prioritised, but will it translate into action? Brazil pushed COP30 as the ‘Implementation COP’ with concrete support for indigenous peoples and small-scale farmers – but history shows COP pledges often fail to materialise in concrete action.
- ⚖️ The overall verdict: unity preserved, ambition compromised. Countries agreed to triple adaptation finance and established a Just Global Transition mechanism, but a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels was blocked, and formal agriculture negotiations ended with no substantive outcome.
DEEP DIVE
🚜 Food systems move from side event to main stage
Food and agriculture have barely registered at past UN climate summits. It wasn’t until COP28 in Dubai that 150+ countries signed a declaration to make sustainable agriculture central to climate policies – but it was still essentially a side commitment.
COP30 changed that, with the host, Brazil, making ‘Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems’ one of just six priority action pillars for the entire conference. This was more than a symbolic gesture: it meant dedicated high-level discussions, a Food Action pavilion at the venue, and food systems included throughout the formal negotiations.
Why does this matter? The food system accounts for roughly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and is the most significant driver of biodiversity loss worldwide. We are already on track to overshoot the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. Changing how we produce and consume food will be essential to correcting course.
Brazil’s positioning was strategic. Deforestation for cattle ranching and soya production is the number one threat to the Amazon, so placing food systems at the heart of a climate summit held in Belém sent a clear message that we can’t protect forests without changing food production. As one observer put it, this was “the most comprehensive inclusion of food systems that we’ve had to date in a COP.”
The shift from a side event to the main agenda represents years of advocacy finally breaking through – but it also raises the stakes. Now that food has the spotlight, what happens next?
📜 The Belém Declaration links climate action with ending hunger
In the opening days of COP30, President Lula gathered world leaders to sign the Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Climate Action. In doing so, 43 countries and the EU formally acknowledged that tackling climate change and ending hunger must go hand in hand.
The Declaration recognises that climate change is not just an environmental crisis but a social crisis. It explicitly spotlights small-scale farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and Indigenous peoples as both the most vulnerable to climate impacts and stewards of sustainable food systems. Signatories pledged to strengthen support for these groups through climate-resilient agriculture programmes and protection of land rights.
Currently, only 4% of global climate finance flows to agriculture and land use. Even more starkly, only an estimated 0.3% reaches smallholder farmers – despite them being amongst the hardest hit by climate impacts and producing a large share of the world’s food. This considerable imbalance has been described as both a glaring injustice and a missed opportunity.
The Declaration includes a significant financial commitment, scaling up climate finance to at least USD 300 billion per year by 2035, with priority given to food security, smallholder resilience, and just transitions in agriculture. This is a departure from climate finance discussions that have traditionally focused on renewable energy and infrastructure.
Although not legally binding, the Declaration sends an important message that you can’t separate cutting emissions from protecting people’s basic rights to food and livelihood. For Brazil, this aligns with its Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) programme, which has successfully lifted millions out of poverty, demonstrating that social development and climate goals can reinforce each other.
The real test, of course, is whether the money actually materialises and wealthy nations follow through on their support for the small-scale producers who are crucial to food security in the Global South.
🐘 The elephant in the room: demand-side measures
While COP30 elevated food systems on the agenda, there’s a glaring omission in most countries’ climate plans: what we actually eat.
The science is clear. The IPCC states that emissions reductions from shifting diets and cutting food waste are at least as significant as those from improving farming practices. Yet a recent scorecard found that while all evaluated countries include agriculture in their climate plans, only about half have any policies on sustainable diets or consumption.
This matters because you can’t transform food systems by only focusing on production. Currently, livestock accounts for the largest share of agricultural emissions. The EAT-Lancet Commission shows that plant-rich diets could halve food-related emissions while preventing millions of diet-related deaths.
Advocates at COP30 pushed for demand-side measures, including dietary guidelines in national climate plans, reduced food waste targets, and shifting public procurement towards plant-based options. But the political sensitivity around telling people what to eat – and concerns about domestic livestock industries – meant these remained largely off the table.
For UK policymakers, this raises questions about whether our National Food Strategy adequately addresses consumption patterns, or whether we’re holding on to the hope that production improvements alone will suffice.
👩🏾🌾 Implementation COP – or just more promises?
Brazil repeatedly framed COP30 as an ‘Implementation COP’ that would prioritise action and concrete support over vague pledges. This meant pushing for clear roadmaps, better knowledge-sharing platforms, and tying agricultural climate action directly to finance and technology transfer mechanisms.
Within the formal UNFCCC negotiations, countries worked on strengthening the Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on Agriculture and Food Security – a four-year program launched at COP27. The focus was on recognizing progress in implementing more systemic and holistic approaches to climate action on agriculture, food systems and food security, with proposals for technical assistance networks to help countries scale successful practices and more closely link agricultural work with climate finance.
But COPs have a long history of ambitious declarations that never translate to action on the ground. Voluntary initiatives have been fragmented, leaving leading countries competitively disadvantaged and laggards facing no consequences. Climate finance pledges routinely fall short. And the necessary cross-sector coordination among agriculture, health, environment, and treasury ministries remains elusive in most countries.
⚖️ So how did COP30 actually land?
The overall verdict could be described as ‘multilateralism held – but only just’. Countries agreed to triple adaptation finance by 2035 – five years later than climate-vulnerable nations had pushed for. They also established a Just Transition Mechanism to support workers and communities as fossil fuel use is reduced. But over 80 countries pushing for a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels were blocked by a small group of major fossil fuel producers. The final text doesn’t mention fossil fuels at all. And, crucially for food: despite prioritisation by the COP presidency, the formal agriculture negotiations ended without a substantive outcome. Food finally had its moment, but without concrete wins in the negotiated text.
The era of treating food as a side issue at climate talks may be over. Whether the era of meaningful action has begun remains to be seen.
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