Our food system accounts for around a third of all global emissions – so why has it hardly been talked about at previous COPs? The UN’s climate change conference brings together world leaders every year to try to bash out a deal to cut emissions and halt climate change. But so far, it’s been famously silent on food and farming. This seems absurd, even to a casual observer, and even more so when one considers the potential of food system landscapes to sequester carbon and lock it away. What on earth is going on then, and will this ever change? COP veteran, Prof Tim Benton (University of Leeds, Chatham House, AFN Network+ co-lead, and former UK Food Security Champion), is the perfect person to lead us through this conundrum. Tim has been to many COPs, worked with many governments on food system transformation, is regularly consulted by the UK’s Climate Change Committee, as well as being an author for the IPCC’s Special Report on Land, Food and Climate. Tim will lift the lid on what really happens at COP, where food and farming sit in it all, how this might change in the future, and his hopes for this year’s COP28 in Dubai.
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Interviewing him is Prof Neil Ward from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, and AFN Network+ co-lead (alongside Tim). The podcast is put together by Jez Fredenburgh, our Knowledge Exchange Fellow.