If you’re concerned about the climate crisis but are finding it a challenge to reduce the carbon footprint of your food, you’ll appreciate the magnitude of the task faced by participants in the UN Food Systems Summit trying to change food systems in 191 countries!
The first ever UN Food Systems Summit held in New York last month was never going to solve the problems with global food systems in two days, but it was the most comprehensive attempt to-date. The mere fact that discussions took place at this level offers significant hope.
Citizens around the world are experiencing the effects of the climate crisis whether it be wildfires, heat domes, droughts, hurricanes, floods or famine. And farmers around the world are struggling with drought, water shortages, heat waves, lower yields, crop failures, flooding and more. As people increasingly grasp the urgency of the situation, this should fire up policy makers to drive transformative change.
The Food Systems Summit came at a critical juncture in the run-up to the COP26 Climate Summit in November and the subsequent Biodiversity summits. It framed the challenge for global policy makers — to finally address the impact of global food systems on everything from the likelihood of future pandemics, the impact of diet-driven diseases and ill health, global food inequity and security, and as an amplifier to the climate crisis.
Science-based evidence continues to pile up and is becoming impossible to ignore. A new study in Nature Food shows that food systems emissions are much higher than previously thought, accounting for 35% of all global GHGs, 60% of which comes from meat, dairy and all animal farming. And unhealthy foods, agricultural emissions and pollution are linked to multiple health threats while three billion people deal with malnutrition.
Study after study says we can’t meet climate targets without changing ag and foods systems.
The 18 months of consultation leading up to the summit wisely cast a wide net that included 100,000 participants — including indigenous peoples who have a better track record of managing the environmental and biodiversity impacts of food production — to Big Food and Big Ag industries. Some industry groups were called out for trying to use the summit to advance their own interests but it is magical thinking to believe we can change complex global food systems overnight or without the players currently involved.
To make the necessary transformational changes as quickly as required, we need to have all players in the global food systems contributing to the solutions. For example, by putting more plant-based options on their menus Big Food has the scale and marketing muscle to accelerate the consumption of climate friendly foods.
Will the decision by McDonald’s to sell plant-based burgers in the UK at the same price as beef burgers have more of an impact on the climate crisis than convincing people to adopt a vegan diet? Of course.
That said, we must remain vigilant to empty claims of “sustainable production” and “greenwashing” that dress up the status quo. And we need to be wary of incremental steps such as farm biogas or seaweed animal feed additives to reduce methane. By seemingly offering an end game, such tactics serve only to distract. They can’t deliver results at the speed and scale required — low-methane meat will still emit 10x more than plant-based foods — and, in the meantime, they can impede transformative change.
The good news is, the summit produced hundreds of commitments from governments, civil society groups, businesses, farmers and more.
“This must be the moment when our global food systems undergo a “hard re-boot”. That means driving structural change; making tough decisions; and bringing diverse voices to the decision-making table,” said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Program. “Yet no single actor has sufficient power — on their own — to steer such a complex system in a new direction. This change needs to be sparked [and] driven at the country-level.”
Food system decisions have to be made by each government in each country. And businesses will make fundamental changes they otherwise wouldn’t choose if compelled by policy makers leading the way. Just look at the commitments to electric vehicles in Europe and the US. And people can force climate friendly changes by holding businesses and policymakers accountable, and voting with our wallets at the grocery store and at the ballot box.
Fast, large-scale structural change in global food systems is crucial to effectively address the climate crisis. But we need all the solutions — big and small — to get there. The Food Systems Summit was an encouraging start and offers hope for the future. Will its commitments translate into real action? We are running out of time.