The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP28, is the 28th United Nations Climate Change conference, and world leaders have agreed a major declaration on the future of food and farming.
The Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action was signed by 134 countries, including the US, China and Brazil, and taken together they produce 70% of the world's food.
The BBC says that each has promised to ‘consider greenhouse gas emissions from food and agriculture’ in their national plans to combat climate change.
Food awareness organisation, ProVeg International, has welcomed the signing of the agreement declaration because it includes the need for agricultural systems to be included in countries’ plans to tackle climate change, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), by 2025. NDCs are the main way countries can set climate targets at COP.
“We are really pleased that after many years of work at COP, countries have finally agreed to tackle emissions from the global food system,” Raphaël Podselver, Director of UN Affairs at ProVeg International, said.
“The food system emits a third of global greenhouse gases and most of that comes from animal agriculture. So we now hope signatories to the Declaration will look at ways to promote the production and consumption of plant-based, climate-friendly food to honour the goals of the Declaration,” Podselver said.
He added that plant-based foods emit half as much greenhouse gas as animal-based foods so they present an effective way of tackling climate change.