Reflections on COP28: Bringing food systems to the center of climate change action

From the dedicated CGIAR pavilion and beyond, participants from the Alliance immersed themselves in the events, drawing delegates’ attention to the importance of food systems transformation in climate change mitigation and adaptation, based on the Alliance’s latest research. Gathering insights from the Alliance’s team on site, it became clear that finally, food systems took center stage in the negotiations. The increasing recognition of the importance of integrating agricultural policy with climate action was illustrated by the ‘UAE Declaration on Sustainable Food Systems’, signed by 150 countries that attended the conference. In the declaration, negotiators of the climate change commitments recognized that “any path to fully achieving the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement must include agriculture and food systems. We affirm that agriculture and food systems must urgently adapt and transform in order to respond to the imperatives of climate change.”

This is a significant milestone in the progress of global climate action, because it has taken many years for the negotiations to recognize that how we manage our food systems is critical to reducing emissions, and that farmers – on whose work we all rely – require significant support to adapt to a changing climate.