Food is generally a hot topic at COP: whether it’s about the quality, availability or price, – from meat-heavy menus at Katowice to empty restaurants at Sharm-el-Sheikh. But yesterday, the COP28 Presidency broke new ground by launching the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action. The stated aim of the Declaration is to harness the profound potential of agriculture and food systems to drive “powerful and innovative responses to climate change and to unlock shared prosperity for all”. But the reality falls very short of the profound transformation necessary for food systems to be truly integrated into climate action.
The Declaration has been endorsed by 134 countries including China, Brazil, the United States and the EU. ECO commends their commitment to pursue engagements to “integrate agriculture and food systems into National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions” by COP30, and the recognition of the Right to Food.
What bugs ECO is that one key element to food systems transformation remains unmentioned: that it is absolutely necessary to tackle the fossil fuel intensive fertiliser industry. Could the silence have something to do with the fact that Fertiglobe, the largest nitrogen fertiliser platform in the world, is based in the UAE?
The manufacture and use of nitrogen fertilisers generate almost 5% of global emissions. Yet different approaches are possible, such as producing food through agroecology and from more biodiverse grasslands that thrive without fertilisers. But this is just one example – food systems are fossil fuel heavy. Recent research has shown that food systems account for 15% of all fossil fuel use.
The multilateral process of the Sharm el Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security is currently deadlocked. ECO has yet to see governments come forward with the holistic approaches needed in order to achieve sustainable food systems through a just transition away from current polluting systems. Parties, you can do better.