Launched at COP28 in Dubai, the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action reaffirms existing international commitments to halt climate change and nature loss while building in more resilience. It outlines how bringing these agendas together will be crucial to ensuring food security in the decades to come.
Representatives of those signed up to the Declaration will meet at a roundtable this weekend, within the annual UN-led climate conference, to make connections that should enable collaborative delivery.
The Declaration covers issues including:
- Adapting food systems to climate change that is already ‘baked in’, with a focus on the specific needs of the most-affected groups including smallholder farmers and Indigenous groups
- Helping these groups maintain their livelihoods
- Enhancing early warning systems
- Enhancing water management in agriculture, which accounts for more than 70% of global freshwater use each year
- Protecting and restoring soils and ecosystem
- Reducing food loss and waste, which is accountable for at least 8% of global annual emissions
- Promoting more sustainable aquaculture
- Encouraging changes in consumption, with a focus on the Global North
- Ensuring and improving access to nutrition, with a focus on the Global South