1000’s of delegates have congregated in Baku, Azerbaijan, this week for COP29, this 12 months’s United Nations local weather summit. Forward of the convention, specialists predicted that meals and agriculture would take middle stage, due to an agenda that included addressing methane emissions from meals programs. In attendance are officers main among the world’s most influential meals coverage organizations, together with the Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations, the World Meals Programme, and CGIAR, previously the Consultative Group on Worldwide Agricultural Analysis.
These specialists ready for COP29 with excessive hopes for the settlement that may finally come out of the convention. Some are desperate to see negotiators funnel extra funding commitments into decarbonizing meals programs, whereas others purpose to scale up humanitarian assist pledges to deal with international starvation. However as the primary week of the summit attracts to a detailed, meals coverage professionals stated the result of the most recent U.S. presidential election is undermining progress on a problem that has lengthy been uncared for at worldwide local weather talks.
“Issues look very dangerous for agriculture and agrifood programs,” stated Claudia Ringler, director of the pure sources and resilience unit at CGIAR’s Worldwide Meals Coverage Analysis Institute.
The incoming Trump presidency has “dramatically lowered” her expectations of tangible outcomes associated to meals programs. “The prospect of getting one thing severe and optimistic out of [COP29]? Extraordinarily bleak,” stated Ringler.
Meals programs are accountable for roughly a 3rd of anthropogenic greenhouse fuel emissions. Most of those come from livestock: Cattle, sheep, and different ruminants belch methane into the air as they digest meals. Methane is 80 to 90 occasions extra highly effective than carbon in its first 20 years within the environment. In the meantime, roughly 733 million individuals went hungry final 12 months, with the bulk dwelling in nations whose economies are depending on agriculture. The problem for worldwide policymakers is to discover a solution to scale down agricultural emissions whereas additionally making certain there’s sufficient meals to feed an more and more food-insecure international inhabitants.
One of many greatest motion gadgets anticipated to return out of COP29 is the regulation of methane. Practically 160 nations have pledged at the least a 30 % discount from 2020 methane emissions ranges by 2030 — a voluntary settlement that originated in 2021 at COP26 — however most have but to develop a coverage pathway to attain it. In the meantime, methane emissions are rising quicker than every other greenhouse fuel.
However the international initiatives unveiled in Baku to this point have centered on lowering methane emissions from oil and fuel and landfill sectors — not animal agriculture.
Ringler doesn’t count on that to alter by the point the summit wraps subsequent Friday. Even with out the backdrop of a fraught political local weather within the U.S., negotiations over agricultural emissions have damaged down “each single 12 months,” stated Ringler, who calls it a recurring “impasse” over how one can strike a steadiness between local weather stabilization and meals manufacturing.
She additionally doesn’t count on a lot out of the Baku Harmoniya Local weather Initiative for Farmers, a brand new effort launched by the COP29 presidency to mixture farming coalitions and financing networks, which she described as “all only for present.” Many previous summit initiatives have didn’t translate into real-world motion.
“That is so completely different from the power system,” stated Ringler, who famous that although decarbonizing power requires a comparatively easy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, decarbonizing meals programs isn’t as easy. Curbing emissions from meals programs would require adjustments to agricultural consumption and manufacturing, whereas additionally making certain the elements of the world going hungry have entry to sufficient meals. She argues that “the one solution to decarbonize the meals system is by affecting meals manufacturing.”
Martin Frick, director of the United Nations World Meals Programme’s Berlin workplace, has been engaged on these points for many years and has solely only in the near past seen the local weather footprint of meals and agriculture begin to make its means into closed-door negotiations. Regardless of excessive expectations going into the convention, meals programs “haven’t been very distinguished” on the COP29 agenda, he stated.
Nonetheless, Frick famous that the latest U.S. election is driving a way of “urgency” on the bottom at Baku that he thinks is prompting accelerated motion on different points that will find yourself not directly decarbonizing meals programs — specifically, extremely controversial carbon credit score commerce guidelines and a brand new international assist aim that would, in concept, assist lower-income nations transition away from fossil fuels.
The long-term reply to ballooning humanitarian assist wants, Frick stated, “can’t be in shifting round giant portions of meals across the globe, however ought to strengthen the capability of individuals on the bottom to provide their very own meals.”
SOPA Pictures / Getty Pictures
Others think about the diminished U.S. presence on the summit and the conspicuous absence of a number of big-name world leaders an indication to mood expectations.
Elodie Guillon of the worldwide nonprofit World Animal Safety isn’t hoping for a significant announcement or important funding dedication advancing emissions reductions for meals programs. Moderately, she is hinging her bets at Baku on getting clarification on current agreements.
Guillon needs to see “clear steerage” from nations as they replace their nationally decided contributions — emissions-reduction benchmarks mandated by the 2015 Paris Settlement — with robust targets for lowering meals and agriculture emissions. Past that, the summit is generally “a stone alongside the trail,” she stated.
Guillon is trying to the following COP, which is able to convene subsequent November in Belém, Brazil, to be the actual bellwether in financing a simply transition to sustainable meals programs. Till then, whereas the impression of the U.S. election is more likely to gradual some local weather progress, stated Guillon, “the worldwide meals motion gained’t cease due to it.”
Stephanie Feldstein, inhabitants and sustainability director on the nonprofit Middle for Organic Variety, additionally famous that whereas Trump’s reelection may be a “blow at a vital time for local weather motion, it’s not the tip of the story.”
The U.S. is among the planet’s main producers and customers of meat and dairy merchandise. Ultimately 12 months’s COP28, as world leaders signed an agriculture declaration pledge, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack dodged a query about whether or not individuals in nations just like the U.S. want to scale back meat consumption to fulfill local weather objectives.
Therein lies an sudden alternative, stated Feldstein. If Trump does find yourself withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Settlement a second time, it’ll sideline the nation in future international convenings, which might open up a path for different nations to prioritize mitigating emissions from animal agriculture.
“Maybe there’s a possibility that different nations who’re prepared to significantly handle meals and agriculture emissions might be in a position to take action,” stated Feldstein, “and can have the ability to set the remainder of the world on a greater trajectory for really decarbonizing the meals system.”
