By Remus Bandacu
For years, agriculture and food systems have occupied an uncomfortable space in climate negotiations. Everyone acknowledges they’re critical (responsible for roughly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions), yet the crucial link between food and climate was pushed to the background of official debates, with past negotiations focusing on boosting agricultural production.
COP28 in Dubai marked a turning point. For the first time, world leaders signed a declaration on food and agriculture at a COP, which committed 160 countries to integrate agriculture and food systems into their NDCs and National Adaptation Plans by 2025, and to scale up climate finance for food systems transformation. Food systems were also included in the global stocktake and Global Goal on Adaptation. The breakthrough suggested that agriculture and climate action might finally advance together. Then came COP29 in Baku. The momentum stalled. Food systems, biodiversity, and ecosystems barely featured in the final outcomes. The progress made in Dubai failed to translate into continued action.
This makes COP30 and the NDCs 3.0 critical, as countries prepare updated climate commitments to embed the comprehensive food systems approaches that current NDCs and national plans lack. The location itself is fitting: world leaders will convene in the heart of the Amazon, a landscape that embodies both the urgency and opportunity of agricultural transformation. With its Action Agenda, this COP is poised to focus on delivery.
Can COP30 deliver on agriculture’s climate hopes?
The COP30 Action Agenda introduces a new architecture for climate action, organised around 30 key objectives across six axes. Under Axis 3 – Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems, dedicated ‘Activation Groups’ will coordinate all existing agriculture and food systems initiatives, measure results transparently, and develop plans to scale implementation by 2028. This represents a shift from fragmented voluntary commitments to coordinated, measurable progress. The groups will convene to coordinate and collaborate on issues related to land restoration and sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems across production and consumption, and equitable access to adequate food and nutrition.
The climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises are interconnected, and food systems sit at the nexus of all three. Unsustainable agricultural practices are the biggest driver of all biodiversity loss, and account for 70% of freshwater withdrawals. Yet over 700 million people go hungry every day, and over 2.8 billion lack access to a healthy diet. Conventional agricultural intensification won’t solve this problem. The system itself urgently needs transformation.
Analysis of updated Nationally Determined Contributions (prior to the COP28 declaration) shows that while 94% of countries mention food systems in their climate plans, only 3% include comprehensive measures that address production, food loss and waste, and dietary shifts together. Most NDCs focus on sustainable production while largely ignoring post-harvest measures and consumption patterns, despite evidence that dietary shifts and food waste reduction could deliver significant CO₂-equivalent emissions reductions annually. Only 28 updated NDCs explicitly include reducing food loss and waste, and 10 mention measures for sustainable and healthy diets. And while 76 NDCs now reference agroforestry, only 19 explicitly include agroecology. The gap between ambition and action remains wide.
The finance gap is equally challenging. Estimates suggest that transitioning to regenerative and nature-positive agriculture will require between $200 billion and $450 billion annually over the next decade. Current funding flows amount to less than 10% of that need. Without stacked financial support combining short-term transition finance with long-term incentives, farmers (especially smallholders who produce one-third of the world’s food) face unsustainable debt burdens and income losses during the transition period. This is particularly acute in Asia and Africa, which account for 88% of global employment in agri-food systems.
Research shows that food systems transformation could deliver at least 20% of the emission reductions needed to meet the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement. A shift toward diets that are based on local food contexts and produced within planetary boundaries can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect and restore wildlife, reduce land use, and improve public health. Scaling agroecological practices (such as crop diversification, agroforestry, integrated livestock systems) can rehabilitate degraded land, enhance biodiversity, improve water retention, and build farmer resilience to climate shocks.
The solutions exist. What’s missing is the connective tissue between high-level commitments and on-the-ground implementation: the technical capacity to design bankable projects, the financial architecture to blend public and private capital, the policy coherence to align national strategies with international frameworks. COP30’s new architecture aims to bridge this gap, complementing initiatives such as the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security, established at COP27, to drive coordinated implementation through 2028. This is where practical support will make all the difference.
E Co: connecting the dots, from policy development and strategy formulation to design, training, and impact
At E Co, our work sits at the very intersection of strategic commitments and practical delivery. For instance, we help our clients secure financing for projects that integrate food systems and ecosystem-based adaptation. In Peru, our project design support contributed to approval of the USD 90.5 million Resilient Puna project, which uses ecosystem-based adaptation to strengthen climate resilience for vulnerable people in High Andean communities while restoring ecosystems critical for agricultural productivity and water security. In Saint Lucia, we supported development of the USD 16.7 million FISH-ADAPT project, which addresses climate resilience in fisheries and aquaculture using nature-based solutions.
Beyond project design, we also develop the strategic frameworks countries need to access climate finance at scale. We developed Kyrgyzstan’s GCF Country Programme through 2027, defining national climate priorities and building a project pipeline that includes multiple agriculture and food systems initiatives. We build the technical capacity countries need to access climate finance. For instance, we’ve delivered training workshops on climate finance and adaptation strategies for agriculture and water sectors in Oman, and collaborated with the World Bank on policy analysis for nature-based solutions in Pacific atoll countries, contributing to their Climate and Development Report for Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, and Kiribati to identify how mainstreaming nature-based approaches into policy can protect freshwater resources, fisheries, and ecosystems while ensuring food security in countries facing existential climate threats.
COP30’s architecture aims to accelerate coordinated action, but, as always, success ultimately depends on whether finance can be mobilised, and governments and implementing organisations can translate commitments into concrete national strategies and action plans. This is where policy and technical support becomes critical.
Our consultants Felipe Arenas and Riccardo Magini will be attending COP30. As countries prepare their next round of climate commitments, we welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can support government entities, NGOs, implementing organisations, banks, and other private sector actors working on food systems transformation. Please reach out if you’d like to connect!
