Campaign
COP30: For a Just Transition of Food Systems
As the world surpasses 1.5°C of global warming, global food security is in jeopardy. Ahead of COP30 in Brazil, Action Against Hunger calls for a profound and equitable transformation of our agricultural and food systems, placing the right to food at the heart of all climate policies.
The Climate Crisis Worsens Hunger
Today, 673 million people suffer from hunger (8.2% of the global population). The climate crisis is one of the main causes of the increase in global hunger. Floods, droughts, destroyed harvests… In 2024, extreme weather events triggered food crises in 18 countries. In Africa, insufficient rainfall caused droughts, while torrential rains flooded entire regions. These disasters primarily affect the most vulnerable populations, often already facing poverty or conflict. This is a true injustice, as these populations have historically contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions and thus to the climate crisis.
But the paradox is cruel: the agro-industrial food system, supposedly designed to feed the world, is responsible for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. It harms health, the environment, biodiversity… and fails to fulfill the right to healthy and equitable food for all.
A Historic Opportunity in Belém
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), to be held in Belém, Brazil, is a unique opportunity to link climate issues to the Zero Hunger goal. The right to food can be central to various negotiations, and the COP presidency has made system transformation one of the six pillars of its agenda.
Action Against Hunger calls on governments and decision-makers to support and implement a just transition in agri-food systems through:
- Integrating agriculture into just transition negotiations, supporting agroecological and resilient systems.
- Strengthening the right to food and a healthy environment, highlighting the rights of Indigenous Peoples, farmers, and vulnerable communities.
- Improving access to climate financing, especially in fragile and conflict-affected areas.
- Combating greenwashing by adopting clear policies against conflicts of interest with fossil fuel and agri-food industries.
Action Against Hunger also supports the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) to make agriculture a pillar of the just transition. This international mechanism must guide farming communities toward sustainable, inclusive, participatory, and agroecological systems, while rejecting false solutions such as large-scale biofuels, which threaten the right to food and food sovereignty.
In conflict zones, it is essential to maintain humanitarian funding, including for anticipatory action, invest in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) to prevent malnutrition, and ensure the participation of affected communities, who are still too often excluded from climate negotiations.
Concrete Solutions Exist
With 3.8 billion people living off agriculture, it is urgent to support a transition to sustainable practices and livelihoods through climate policies. Agroecology enables the production of nutritious and healthy food while respecting ecosystems. It promotes crop diversity, reduces waste, protects water resources, and strengthens community resilience.
This transition must be supported by public funding, training, social protection, and support for small producers, especially women. It must also be integrated into national climate and biodiversity strategies.
CAMEROON :
In Cameroon, Action Against Hunger supports families through cash transfers, training, and income-generating activities. Ousmane, displaced by conflict and floods, was able to restart his life through a tomato farming project:
“This project gave me hope again. I can feed my children and earn a living.”
SENEGAL :
In northern Senegal, the Déaly Sylvopastoral Reserve faces severe environmental degradation due to overgrazing, bushfires, and climate change. This directly threatens the food security of pastoral families, 70% of whom depend on livestock.
To address this, Action Against Hunger implemented a holistic management approach: animals are grouped on small plots for short periods, allowing soil regeneration through trampling and manure. The plots are then left to rest so vegetation can regrow.
At Belém, governments must listen to the voices of communities, as they are on the front lines of the climate crisis. A just transition of food systems is not optional: it is essential to ensure a healthy, equitable, and sustainable future for all.
COP30: What’s the Outcome?
Disappointing progress regarding the urgent need to recognize the right to food for all
Paris, December 8th, 2025 – At COP30 in Brazil, Action Against Hunger spoke out loud and clear in support of the right to food and a just transition of agricultural and food systems. The results show that there is still a long way to go to ensure coherent and ambitious climate action.
The Mutirão text, adopted in Belém, is silent on agriculture. Nevertheless, it marks an important step forward by recognizing the essential role of small producers, rural economies, and food production in the just transition. It is coupled with the agreement on the Global Just Transition Action Mechanism (BAM), which strengthens cooperation, technical support, and capacity building. These two initiatives represent a major step forward for those who feed the world and bear the brunt of the climate crisis.
There remains a great deal of disappointment, as no adequate public funding has been allocated to help the most affected populations adapt. Today, barely 1.5% of public climate finance is devoted to agroecology or sustainable food systems—even though these are essential to guaranteeing the right to food for all, including future generations.
Our demands vs. COP30 outcomes
Include agriculture in negotiations on just transition and provide massive support for the transition to agroecological and resilient systems.
- A mixed result: the mention of small-scale producers and food production in the work program on just transition is a positive sign. However, the absence of any explicit reference to the right to food and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) leaves the text weakened and still far from our ambitions.
Demand clear and consistent indicators for adaptation, as well as concrete means to implement them
- Insufficient progress: the final list of indicators is inconsistent and funding remains well below what is needed. Loans (which countries will have to repay with interest) are favored over grants, which tends to worsen the situation for countries in the long term.
Facilitating access to climate finance in fragile and conflict-affected areas.
- Recognition without action: the Belém Declaration acknowledges the severity of the crisis in these contexts.
End conflicts of interest and greenwashing, protect the COP to ensure a truly just transition and credible climate solutions.
- Major failure: more than 300 agribusiness lobbyists were accredited, and giants such as Bayer and Nestlé sponsored AgriZone, promoting “false solutions” that perpetuate an industrial agricultural model responsible for one-third of global emissions.