COP30: when food came to the climate change negotiating table

COP30 planted a seed that could transform the way we think about the right to food. I am not just referring to the COP’s food and catering spaces, where priority was given to local, seasonal products from family farms, such as Taperebá and Cupuaçu. The COP went further by including the discussion on food systems in the global climate agenda.   

Events, dialogues, and panels were held in Belém to link climate policies with agriculture, the right to food, and rural communities. The discussions included proposals to integrate food systems into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), understood as key instruments for climate action, with the aim of not only contributing to emissions reduction, but also to strengthening food security and adaptation to climate change. This input is not only a voluntary instrument, but, when adopted by States, it functions as a space for articulation between climate commitments and pre-existing legal obligations in human rights.

This is relevant because historically, food systems have occupied a limited or fragmented place within NDCs, despite their close relationship with climate change. In this context, explicitly integrating food systems into NDCs means moving beyond traditional approaches focused exclusively on agricultural productivity or emissions mitigation in the agricultural sector, and adopting a comprehensive vision that considers environmental sustainability, climate resilience, and the guarantee of the human right to food.

The dominant global agri-food model has historically been based on intensive production, crop homogenization, massive use of chemical inputs, and the expansion of global supply chains. While some authors have defended this model, arguing that it has increased food availability and contributed to reducing hunger in certain contexts, the truth is that it has also generated significant environmental and social impacts, such as ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, and deepening social inequalities.

Food transition: a paradigm shift towards fair and sustainable systems

Faced with these limitations, civil society organizations in the Global South have introduced the term food transition as a proposal for a paradigm shift that goes far beyond changing what we put on our plates. This approach involves transforming the structural foundations of the food system: promoting agroecology, strengthening family and smallholder farming, diversifying production, reducing food waste, and encouraging healthy and culturally appropriate diets. Although it is not recognized in official documents, it is gaining ground among social actors who are advocating for change. 

From a human rights perspective, the food transition focuses on guaranteeing the right to food. This right, recognized in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is not limited to the absence of hunger, but includes regular and permanent access to sufficient, nutritious, safe, culturally acceptable, and sustainably produced food. In a climate crisis scenario, guaranteeing this right requires transforming food systems so that they do not compromise the ability of future generations to feed themselves. 

The food transition must be fair and inclusive. Without an equity approach, transition policies can deepen existing inequalities, affecting small producers, rural workers, and low-income consumers, as small farmers and rural producers often have more limited access to credit structures and less access to technological infrastructure, among other things, which can prevent them from entering markets. If policies require rapid changes (such as new agricultural practices or reduced inputs), they bear costs that they cannot easily afford. In this regard, states have a responsibility to design public policies that support the most vulnerable sectors, ensure decent livelihoods, facilitate access to productive resources such as land and water, and promote social participation in decision-making.

Furthermore, the food transition is closely linked to the concept of food sovereignty, which recognizes the right of peoples to define their own food systems according to their needs, cultures, and ecological contexts. This approach strengthens food democracy and contributes to a more just and effective response to climate change.

COP30: between the recognition of food systems and the power of the agro-industrial lobby

The growing incorporation of food systems into NDCs reflects a progressive recognition that it is not possible to tackle climate change without profoundly transforming the way we produce, distribute, and consume food. The food transition is thus consolidating itself as a strategic axis of climate action, capable of articulating mitigation and adaptation objectives with the guarantee of the human right to adequate food. 

In this context, COP30 represented a turning point by placing food systems at the center of the international climate debate. The conference highlighted that NDCs must evolve toward more comprehensive approaches that transcend sectoral visions and address food systems from a perspective of sustainability, resilience, and social justice. It also highlighted the need for these contributions to explicitly incorporate the right to food, ensuring that climate policies do not deepen existing inequalities or compromise access to sufficient, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food. 

In the final document of COP30 (known as the Belém Consensus), although the need to transform food systems was recognized for the first time, the references were vague, with no binding commitments or clear financing. Social leaders denounce that the food agribusiness lobby was central to this issue, estimating that nearly 300 delegates representing large agriculture and livestock industries participated in COP30, an increase of 14% over last year’s conference. Many of them, 25%, participate in the negotiations with accreditations issued by the states they represent. This reflects how NDCs are documents riddled with conflicts, interests, and agendas, making the dispute over the incorporation of the transition into many climate commitments predictable. 

COP30 opened an unprecedented window by recognizing the urgency of transforming food systems within the climate agenda, but at the same time, the Belém Consensus highlighted the tensions that still exist between declarative commitments and effective action.  Despite these limitations, this agreement opens up a new opportunity for NDCs to become instruments capable of ensuring the sustainability, resilience, and equity of food systems, preventing the climate transition from continuing to reproduce inequalities.