‘Food is finally on the table’: Cop28 addressed agriculture in a real way

Roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to food systems, but Cop had avoided agreements until now

Food systems - what we eat; how we grow, ship and cook it; and how we dispose of (and sometimes waste) it - are responsible for roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. But for the better part of three decades, the final agreements that emerge from the UN's yearly climate summits have left out the impact food systems have on our climate.

That changed this year in Dubai. The conference opened with a declaration on sustainable agriculture signed by more than 130 countries. For the first time ever, it featured a whole day devoted to food and agriculture and saw a food systems road map laid out by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Perhaps most strikingly, the final agreement document that was revealed at the end of the conference acknowledged sustainable agriculture as a part of responding appropriately to climate change.