20 December, Carin Smaller and Oshani Perera

The FAO has just released its much-anticipated global roadmap on Achieving sustainable development goal (SDG) 2 without breaching the 1.5C threshold. It is noble in its principles and its vision. It importantly calls for a just transition recognising that food security and nutrition cannot be attained without mitigating and adapting to climate change. We welcome the reference to the right to food, and a narrative that focuses on the 3 billion people that cannot afford a healthy diet.   

The ambition of the roadmap is high. It aims to move beyond the silos and calls for food policies that include ecosystems, water, energy and nutrition in a systemic, circular manner. It positions food as a strategy to achieve the Paris Agreement, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It complements that CoP 28 UAE Food Systems Declaration with quantitative milestones (see Figure 1). Moreover, it establishes the critical link between energy and food and how the food system can contribute to decoupling our dependence on fossil fuels.  

FIGURE 1

We are proud to partner with FAO on this roadmap through our joint project, Hesat2030: Ending hunger nutritiously, sustainably, and equitably.  But we must also share our concerns as it stands now and improve its relevance to the current reality. 

The FAO roadmap falls short on 5 counts:   

1. The roadmap is not honest about the reality that we will most likely breach the 1.5C threshold before 2030. 

Earlier this year, Nature published a report showing that there is a 66% chance that we will breach 1.5C by 2027, although more likely by 2030. The current IPCC report estimates it will happen by 2040. The implementation plan and the milestones of the FAO roadmap fails to align with this reality.  Most of the climate milestones are set after 2030 (see Figure 1). 

The more immediate milestones set until 2030 are certainly important to get the transition underway. But the rest is too little, too late. More importantly, focusing on reducing GHG emissions alone is not sufficient. Instead, the FAO should be raising the ambition, based on science, and putting forward a plan to rapidly decarbonise the whole agri-food system from agricultural inputs, food processing and transport, to packaging, storage, and waste. 

2. The roadmap does not go far enough to strengthen links between the many sectors involved in delivering SDG 2. 

The roadmap overlooks the systemic linkages between sectors and why performance-based incentives are important to reward and scale integrated approaches. For example, the section on crops missed the opportunity to call for crop diversity to support soil regeneration, mitigation, adaptation, new farming revenues and diet diversity. Similarly, the roadmap focuses on the biofuels from agricultural waste and plantations for biofuels but does not sufficiently recognise the challenges related to its technology costs for low and middle-income countries, and the fact that scaling up biofuels production can both increase deforestation and compete with food crops in the demand for arable land.  

3. The roadmap does not speak truth to the meat debate or touch on the climate penalty on nutrition.  

The roadmap is timid about the divisive debate on meat consumption. It states the need to rebalance meat consumption for fairer distribution without pitting developed against developing nations. This gives governments an excuse to continue with business as usual without facing the hard reality: to have any chance of staying within the 1.5C threshold, people in richer countries need to dramatically decrease consumption of dairy and meat, while those that are malnourished in poorer countries need to increase their dairy and meat consumption.  

Why? Because livestock is the greatest contributor to GHG emissions in the agricultural sector, and yet the 735 million people affected by hunger need to increase their intake of animal-sourced foods, like dairy and meat, to absorb calcium and B12 needed to live a healthy life. The roadmap is a missed opportunity to confront the contradictions in the current food and climate debates and the sacrifices needed to achieve the rebalancing called for in the roadmap. It also does not address the health impacts of over-consumption of animal-sourced foods.  

The radical changes in consumer behaviour that is needed in richer countries are politically charged – the rise of populist parties around the world are partly a testament to this. The response of the US Republican Party to the CoP28 discussions on meat taxes and meat eating is a case in point. The FAO needs to use the science and evidence to be bolder on the issue of meat consumption. 

The climate penalty on nutrition is also overlooked. Higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2 reduce the protein and micronutrient content of cereals - concentrations of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulphur, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese can decrease by 5–10 % under atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 690 ppm (3.5C warming). 

4. The roadmap fails to address the power imbalances that results in the systematic exclusion of women, the differently abled, the poor and the most vulnerable.  

The roadmap is blind to the power imbalances and the systematic exclusion of the rights of women, the differently-abled, the poor, and vulnerable groups. This exclusion is what exacerbates food insecurity, malnutrition, and climate change. We produce enough food to feed the world. It simply does not get to where it is needed. The suggested technical fixes, while thorough and comprehensive, have existed for decades.  The FAO and its partners also have the evidence to show that these solutions do work, but only in societies that are more inclusive and when citizens have basic rights and access to financial, social, human and natural capital.     

Our work with African competition authorities is addressing some of these power imbalances by preventing anti-competitive conduct and harmful concentration in food markets. As our recent report shows, the extreme concentration of power in food and agricultural market harms small producers, informal businesses, and consumers. In Africa, it is an overlooked force driving up food insecurity and poverty.  Another example is our work on sustainable finance and sovereign debt swaps that seeks solutions to increasing the flow of financing to sustainable agri-food SMEs. 

5. The incremental implementation of the roadmap over the CoP 29 and CoP 30 is perhaps the most disappointing.  

The urgency for action is missing. The ongoing impacts of changing climates and the reality that warming is happening faster than ever predicted is overlooked. The FAO needs to honour its evidence-based commitments, look to current climate science, and match their milestones to this reality.  

Food has finally arrived on the climate negotiating table, as evidenced by the 159 countries that signed the UAE Food Systems Declaration. It is no longer on the sidelines. This roadmap is the food communities' chance to shine. The FAO has the data, evidence and tools to be bolder, more visionary, and more honest about the sacrifices and trade-offs that are needed to achieve SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5C threshold.