Time to Put Food on the Menu of International Climate Negotiations: Towards a Food Day at COP27 in Egypt
The European Alliance for Plant-based Foods (EAPF) joins like-minded organisations in calling on the international community to include food systems as an integral part of the official agenda of next year’s United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP27) in Egypt.
The recent COP26 in Glasgow missed the opportunity to properly address the role of food systems, and to develop strong actions to tackle their impact on climate change. Food systems are in fact responsible for one-third of man-made GHG emissions; yet, at the same time, they can also be a fundamental part of the solution to fight the climate crisis, if supportive policies and enough investments are channelled towards the promotion of sustainable production and consumption patterns worldwide. An important element to boost such transition is an overall dietary shift towards predominantly plant-based diets, which was missing from key initiatives launched during COP26, such as:
- The Global Methane Pledge. The agri-food and in particular the livestock sector are responsible for respectively the 53% and 14% of global methane emissions. Effectively addressing their impact on methane emissions requires promoting a dietary change and rebalancing consumption patterns towards more plant-based foods.
- The Global Agenda for Innovation in Agriculture and The Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate. Innovation in the agri-food sector is needed to be able to feed a growing world population with sustainable, healthy and nutritious foods. As plant-based foods play a key role in food security, funds need to support a just transition towards more plant-crop farming for food purposes, leveraging the sustainability potential of crops and making it economically viable for farmers.
The role of the food system transition is crucial to support global efforts to fight climate change, and should be a central topic of the next COP27, taking place in Egypt in November 2022. We are therefore calling on the international community to allocate a dedicated Food Day at COP27.
Read the full statement here.