1. What is the impact and importance of our food systems in securing a 1.5 degrees future? 

Today, food systems are responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and deplete the very sources of life on earth: our lands, forests, oceans, rivers, and other ecosystems at an unprecedented speed. At the same time, unequitable food distribution has left more than 2.3 billion people – nearly 30% of the world’s population – food insecure, while more than 930 million tons of food is wasted every year.

But this was not always the case. For thousands of years, our food systems developed with benign effects on our environment. As our economic activities industrialized and globalized, so did our food systems. This has had profound impacts on how we produce, distribute, and consume food, creating a cascade of interacting processes that are pushing our food systems to the brink of collapse.

2. What, in your opinion, are some of the most important actions in our current food systems to help tackle the climate crisis?

We need to completely transform our food systems to reduce their impacts on climate and nature while making them more resilient and adaptive to a changing climate. For this, we must change our agricultural practices, stop wasting food, and eat healthier and more diverse diets. Luckily, there is existing knowledge and tools to achieve this without reinventing the wheel or building solutions from scratch.

For example, shifting away from industrial and monoculture food production to agroecological practices that use traditional and indigenous knowledge can help revitalize our soils, protect, and regenerate our ecosystems, and reduce and sequester emissions. Sustainable and resilient infrastructure and technologies to store and transport food can avoid food loss from spoilage. But at the same time, we also need to distribute food more equitably to increase access to food for all by thinking about healthy food as a basic need and right rather than a commodity in our policy making. Making more diverse and healthy food available and affordable can also promote behavioral changes at the individual and societal levels thus reducing the impacts of what we eat on our health and the planet.

3. Are there any current/upcoming policies and projects by Climate Focus in place to address this issue?

Together with partners like WWF and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, we are assessing policy gaps to identify what governments, private sector, civil society, and other stakeholders need to do to make food systems transformation possible. We will launch these policy papers in the coming months ahead of COP27 in Egypt. We also plan with our partners to design tools in the near future that can help policymakers and practitioners to implement concrete actions to achieve specific policy objectives thus facilitating the transformation.

4. How should countries and governments incorporate solutions for food systems in their current NDCs?

Because food systems are dynamic and consist of many interconnected and interdependent parts that constantly influence one another, any policy or action to fix one part of our food system will likely have unintended consequences — positive and negative. For example, efforts to reduce emissions from agriculture could negatively impact food security and the health of local communities. And increasing access to affordable food may drive the conversion of valuable ecosystems to boost food production.

As such, climate and food policymaking and action including through the Nationally Determined Contributions must take a holistic and context-appropriate approach. This means examining food systems in their totality — from production to consumption to disposal — and working with stakeholders across sectors and all levels of government to design and implement appropriate policies