Accelerating action on food systems at COP28

Events Food and Agriculture

Food Systems Pavilion at COP28

A coalition of leading international food organisations created the Food Systems Pavilion at COP28 to raise ambition on food systems at the conference, with the shared goal to accelerate the transition to healthy, resilient and equitable food systems.

Results and impact:

Increase of

125

per cent in media mentions for ‘food systems’ compared to COP27.

Newsletter opens

+4K

Over

signatures on pre-COP open letter by civil society organisations and coalitions.

Media coverage across

countries

Social media engagements

15.5

thousand with Food Systems Pavilion.

Accelerating action on food systems at COP28

Challenge: food and agriculture is overlooked in climate negotiations

Food and agriculture are the largest sources of environmental degradation and are responsible for more than one-third of global GHG emissions, but have been largely overlooked in climate negotiations. At COP27 – where we supported the first ever Food Systems Pavilion – food moved up the agenda, yet parties did not give the UNFCCC a clear mandate to address food systems transformation.

Solution: developing an impactful message framework

We supported the Food Systems Pavilion at COP28 in Dubai, organised by a coalition of high profile international partners. We developed an impactful message framework, coordinated an open letter calling for food systems transformation ahead of COP, and ran a proactive press office on the ground as well as social media amplification across LinkedIn and X. We organised three press briefings with high level spokespeople on core topics throughout the conference.

Results: reaching 34 countries across 5 continents

Our open letter ahead of COP was signed by 80+ civil society organisations and coalitions calling for urgent and ambitious action on food. We secured 592 pieces of coverage in total with an estimated 10.3M views, including in Forbes, BBC, Thomson Reuters, The Guardian, Bloomberg and CNBC.Experts from the Pavilion were quoted 339 times in the media and coverage reached 34 countries across 5 continents. FSP social media channels achieved 4M impressions and 15.5K engagements.

Impact: raising ambition among policymakers

COP28 saw raised ambition among policymakers to achieve the first ever inclusion of ‘food systems’ in the final COP agreement, as well as a first-of-its-kind pledge signed by over 150 countries on food systems and climate – The Emirates Declaration. We achieved increased global reach compared with COP27 – particularly in the Global South – and profiled a much greater range of food systems experts across the value chain, with an emphasis on frontline communities facing the harshest impacts of the climate crisis.