“It is unprecedented that food systems is on the political agenda in this coming COP and it’s an opportunity that we need to support. On the other hand, it is not separate from the need to phase out fossil fuels and is not separate from the energy transition.”
Regardless, questions about what kinds of food and agriculture solutions get prioritized and who will benefit from those solutions will undoubtedly continue to arise as more details emerge in the run-up to November 30.
The host of COP28, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates—with its increasingly hot and arid landscape, heavy dependence on imports, and sizable investments in ag-tech—has made the food sector a big priority. In May, Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri, the U.A.E.’s minister of climate change and environment, was in Washington, D.C. working alongside U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to advance AIM for Climate, a joint U.S.-U.A.E initiative developed in partnership with the world’s biggest chemical, seed, and meat companies—many of whom drive the food system’s biggest sources of greenhouse emissions. Farmers and environmental groups were also notably sparse at the summit.
In August, Almheiri declared in an op-ed that the U.A.E. will “put the focus squarely on food systems and agriculture, encouraging governments to update their nationally determined contributions or NDCs, with specific food targets, and gathering commitments from private and public sector stakeholders for funding and technology.”
But it’s not clear whether this focus on food will draw attention away from the world’s superpowers and their responsibility to immediately, rapidly decrease fossil fuel production.
Less than two weeks before Almheiri’s op-ed ran, reporting out of France found that despite plans to increase renewable energy production, the U.A.E’s own contribution falls far short of the action needed to align with the 1.5 degree warming target set in the Paris Agreement due to the state oil company’s plan to continue increasing oil and gas production. U.A.E. leadership also chose the head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. as president of COP28, and OPEC will have a dedicated pavilion for the first time at a COP conference.
When asked, panelists at the press conference said they did not see the focus on food as distracting from that larger push. “It is unprecedented that food systems is on the political agenda in this coming COP and it’s an opportunity that we need to support. On the other hand, it is not separate from the need to phase out fossil fuels and is not separate from the energy transition,” said Fong from GAFF, who also flagged an upcoming report from her organization that will look at how fossil fuels and agriculture are intertwined.
Read More:
The IPPC’s Latest Climate Report Is a Final Alarm for Food Systems, Too
Did the First U.N. Food Systems Summit Give Corporations Too Much of a Voice?
Is Agroecology Being Coopted by Big Ag?