The Symbiosis Of Food And Climate Arise At COP30

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It was touch-and-go during the final days of COP30 — would there be a declaration on hunger, poverty, and human-centered climate action? Yes! 43 countries and the EU agreed to address the “unequal distribution of climate impacts” through actions including expanding social-protection systems and supporting climate adaptation for small farmers. COP30 made clear that food and climate need to be foregrounded in federal and state health and human services, in city greenhouse gas mitigation discussions, and around everyday kitchen tables.

Sustainable and resilient agrifood systems are essential for achieving the Paris Agreement targets on climate change while ensuring food security and nutrition for present and future generations. This was the overarching message delivered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil.

Several initiatives were announced to promote healthy food and climate exchanges at COP30.

• The UN Environment Program sought to help halve food waste by 2030 and also reduce methane emissions by up to 7%. Brazil, Japan, and the UK, as well as some cities and companies, supported the goal.
• Brazil announced a resilient agriculture investment for net-zero farmland degradation. It was backed by 10 countries, including the UK, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.
• Brazil and the UK agreed to act to reduce the environmental impact of fertilizers.
• The Gates Foundation added $1.4 billion to a kitty for smallholder farmer climate adaptation.

A Spot of Bright Hope in the Fight against Hunger

Some say that Big Ag lobbying has a chokehold on food systems. The demise of the Net Zero Banking Alliance; corporate backtracking on environmental, social and diversity (ESG) commitments; and, the postponement of the EU Deforestation Regulation and the scaling back of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive are the result of dwindling official development assistance budgets and a retreat from multilateralism.

But there is a bright spot of hope, according to the Food Tank. The Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge continues on in the business community. The Pledge is a commitment to invest in projects that end hunger and malnutrition based on the recommendations from the Ceres 2030 project, which identified 90 priority countries and 10 high-impact investment areas. Between 20023 and 2024, 16 companies invested $214 million through 138 projects in 40 countries.

Cumulatively, the Pledge has now deployed $440 million since its launch, and four companies — AGREA, Nutriset, Rabobank, and Soilless Farm Lab — exceeded their original commitment by a combined $151 million. In sum, the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge has mobilized nearly $800 million in commitments from over 100 businesses worldwide to end hunger and malnutrition.

Three key insights need to be addressed about these companies’ priorities.

1. Companies are investing in the resilience of smallholder farmers on their farms and across their value chains. These investments, representing 92 percent of total investments, included programs to improve yields, advance regenerative agriculture, and reduce post-harvest losses.
2. Companies are investing in their local communities. The number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with headquarters in Africa and Asia that are making commitments is growing.
3. However, more effort is needed in Africa which hosts 13 of the 15 high-priority countries identified by the Ceres 2030 project. Only 3% of the projects were deployed in high-priority countries, with only five high-priority countries receiving investment.

We Need Media Literacy to Unpack Misinformation in Food and Climate System Messaging

Issues relating to animal agriculture, such as industrial meat production and dietary changes, are deeply underrepresented in media coverage of climate change, despite the sector accounting for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions or animal agriculture appear in just 343 out of 10,696 articles (3%) about climate change over the past three years. That’s according to a new study from the Center for Biological Diversity. To accurately reflect the proportion of its responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions fueling the climate crisis, news media representation of animal agriculture in media coverage would have to increase 6x.

Following more than a decade of advocacy by the global food movement, food and animal agriculture have become a bigger part of the United Nations’ annual climate talks. However, action targets for the sector remain limited after COP30 and nearly all countries still fail to adequately address meat and dairy industry emissions, further underscoring the need for informed discussion among policymakers, the public, and the media. The biggest challenge, according to FAO, is finance.

According to the FAO, reversing just 10% of cropland degradation could restore 44 million tonnes of annual food production—which would help nourish 154 million people. Despite an increase in critical agrifood investments, forestry, livestock, fisheries, and crop production together received just 4% of total climate-related development finance.

That low percentage can be attributed, at least in part, to media misinformation and disinformation that perpetuates inadequate industrial agriculture practices and disenfranchising small holder farmers. A necessary goal is to ensure that the voices of farmers, food producers, Indigenous land caretakers, and workers are not ignored. Farmers know the close-to-home, immediate, devastating impacts of the climate crisis more intimately than anyone — which also means their insight and guidance can be crucial to solving these challenges.

EAT-Lancet Report Offered a Pathway to Health Food and Climate Systems

COP30 is not the only assembly to address the interaction of food and climate systems this year. The 2025 EAT-Lancet report was released in October. As the most comprehensive global scientific assessment of food systems ever produced, it was built on the 2019 edition but added a new dimension: a case for decisive and coordinated action. It makes clear that the world has the knowledge to transform food systems. The Commission says concerted global efforts to transform food systems could bring us back within planetary boundaries and cut annual greenhouse gas emissions from food systems by more than half compared with a business-as-usual scenario.

How is EAT-Lancet 2.0 different? In addition to layers of new research, the 2025 update:

• examines the need for justice across multiple dimensions: distributive fairness, the recognition of marginalized communities, and their representation in governance;
• focuses on modeling capacity — they’ve incorporated ten agro-economic and environmental models to assess dietary shifts, productivity gains, and reductions in food loss and waste; and,
• proposes explicit food system boundaries for climate, biodiversity, land, water and nutrient cycles, directly linking diets to the Earth’s safe operating space.

The Planetary Health Diet, a global reference diet that sparks optimal health outcomes, has been updated. It endorses cultural and regional variations for different populations and different contexts. The PHD is rich in plants: whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes. Only moderate or small amounts of fish, dairy, and meat are recommended.

In fact, widespread adoption of the diet would require a two-thirds increase in fruit, vegetable, and nut production and allow for a one-third reduction in livestock meat production, compared to 2020 levels. Added sugars, refined grains, and unhealthy fats are minimized in favor of healthier fats from sources like avocados.

Final Thoughts

It’s not just food systems — climate change media coverage declined overall between 2022 and 2025.

Robert Reich reminded us today of the importance of independent media.

Trump’s blatant threats against corporate media whose journalists ask him hard questions and whose comedians ridicule him — and media executives’ chickenshit, obsequious responses to those threats — are exposing the dangers of giant media corporations controlling our access to the truth.

If you are reading this, please become a subscriber to CleanTechnica and help us to tell the stories that are important to hear as we unveil a decentralized and really marvelous vision of a clean energy and healthy climate future.

Resources

• “Action to End Hunger Demands Scaling Large Investments.” Food Tank. November 2025.
• “A toxic combo: Trump, Billionaires, and the Media.” Robert Reich. Substack. November 25, 2025.
• “COP30: FAO brings agrifood systems to the forefront of climate action.” FAO. November 2025.
• “COP30: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Belém.” Carbon Brief. 23 November 2025.
• “Missing Ingredients: How Agriculture and Diet Get Overlooked in Media Coverage of Climate Change. Center for Biological Diversity. November 2025.
• “New landmark EAT-Lancet Commission warns food systems breach planetary limits.” October 2025. Eat Forum.