4.1 The implications of COVID-19 for decision-making in 2021
In recent months the statements and policy positioning of many current and former international leaders, including the UN secretary-general, have begun coalescing around two main messages: firstly, that COVID-19 and the impacts of climate change are both examples of environmental disruptions that will increasingly shape our lives; and secondly, that there is an urgent need to invest in ‘building back better’ so that societies and economies are more resilient to shocks and more sustainable in the long term.
Both this period of reconstruction and the steer of the G7 and G20 leaders on priorities for collective action will be highly influential in the context of food system transformation and biodiversity protection. The sums of money that governments are looking to invest to kickstart their economies are unprecedented, and dwarf those required or allocated to meet environmental or health targets. By way of example, the IMF estimates that $11.7 trillion had been pledged globally by September 2020 to support recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. This is 19,500 to 117,000 times the estimated annual cost of halting deforestation in the Amazon, and 28 to 48 times the annual cost of climate change mitigation anticipated for 2030. It is also between 44 and 1,671 times higher than the estimated cost of ending global undernutrition (estimated to range from $7 billion to $265 billion per year through different investment packages, specific targets, measures and policy pathways).
Evidence of increased morbidity and mortality among COVID-19 sufferers who are malnourished is throwing light on the very real societal costs of the current food system and patterns of consumption.
The scale of this proposed spending shifts the political context within which food system transformation will be discussed over the coming months and years. While there is no easy way to tackle the three-way trade-off outlined in the previous chapter, it is clear that shifting demand and breaking out of the ‘cheaper food’ paradigm will be key to enabling both land-sparing and more agro-ecological farming to enhance biodiversity. To date, there has been considerable resistance to the idea of government intervention in diet. But evidence of increased morbidity and mortality among COVID-19 sufferers who are malnourished – either undernourished
or obese – is throwing light on the very real societal costs of the current food system
and patterns of consumption. Approximately 3 billion people suffer one or more
manifestations of poor nutrition (undernutrition, including deficiencies of vitamins
and minerals, and/or overweight or obesity). These problems alone cost the world
an estimated $3.5 trillion each year. This creates a strong economic incentive to save
money on healthcare by changing the availability and price of nutritionally adequate,
health-promoting food, and by moving towards healthcare systems more focused on
prevention of disease. Once the costs of unsustainable food systems and the ‘cheaper
food’ paradigm – in terms of water and air quality, climate change mitigation and longer-term agricultural productivity – are recognized, the benefits of food system transformation potentially exceed the costs, and inaction becomes economically irrational.
In addition to unprecedented spending, we are entering a new era in which entrenched policy ‘lock-ins’ can now be broken open. Governments around the world have taken highly interventionist actions to slow the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic. Measures to make societies more sustainable that had been previously dismissed as overly draconian or market-distorting may now be back on the table. In some ways, this shift poses risks to international cooperation to promote positive change in the food system. For example, the use of export restrictions to shore up domestic markets in the early days of the crisis suggests that protectionist and distortive trade measures may become more prevalent, further destabilizing global supply chains. In other ways, the increased political tolerance for interventionist economic policies signals a breaking open of many of the most intractable lock-ins that underpin our food system today. Moves by governments around the world, and across the political spectrum, to channel funds into emergency food supply networks and relief programmes for small-scale farmers and smallholders mark a significant redirection of conventional financial flows in the food system, and of government policy towards intervention in food markets.
4.2 Recommendations
Below, we set out three key recommendations for action to harness the opportunities that the coming months offer, and to drive forwards food system transformation in support of biodiversity. These are: (1) recognizing the interrelationship between demand and supply; (2) adopting a ‘food systems approach’ to drive action; and (3) strengthening the coherence between global agreements and local actions.
4.2.1 Recognize the interdependencies of demand and supply in designing food system reform
The importance of food production and consumption patterns to today’s global challenges – mitigating and adapting to climate change, tackling malnutrition and worsening diet-related public health, and managing natural resources in a way that respects planetary boundaries – is now firmly established. International bodies across a range of policy spheres are increasingly talking about the importance of sustainable food production and healthy diets for their agendas.
Food systems nevertheless continue to be addressed in their component parts more often than as a coherent whole. Negotiations under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) address agriculture, forestry and land use as major sources of emissions. The production-based GHG inventory framework – underpinning Nationally Determined Contributions to global mitigation efforts – does not account for the importance of national food consumption and food waste patterns in driving land-use change and emissions overseas. Discussions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) focus on agriculture as a driver of land degradation, ecosystem erosion and biodiversity loss, but do not address the importance of demand-side changes in easing the environmental pressure caused by food production systems. The Nutrition for Growth summits seek to focus government and private sector attention on nutrition interventions at the point of food processing and distribution, and on the biofortification of farmed crops. But the summits largely overlook discussion of structural changes to production methods that would strengthen nutrition security in the longer term, or discussion of dietary changes that would contribute to improved public health and a reduced burden of diet-related disease.
This disjointed approach to food systems – separating demand and supply – needs to change. To change supply-side practices we need to change demand-side markets, and vice versa. Success in setting aside space for biodiversity while adopting nature-friendly farming practices elsewhere will depend on shifting demand and market incentives: all three levers will need to be deployed in concert, and at multiple scales, if food systems are to be transformed in a way that maximizes planetary
and human health benefits.
The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, to be agreed at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UNCBD (see Box 4, CBD COP15) in 2021, will provide a crucial opportunity to embed a ‘food systems approach’ into the global action agenda on biodiversity. It is particularly important for the dialogue around the conference to recognize the complexity of drivers behind biodiversity loss, and to ensure that COP15 speaks to multiple sectors rather than to the environmental community alone. As highlighted in a recent study: ‘Whereas the mission of the UNFCCC focuses on one main outcome – preventing dangerous climate change, for which one goal and indicator provide a reasonable proxy for the others – CBD’s vision and mission have three components that are distinct, complementary, and often trade off with each other: conserving nature, using it sustainably…, and sharing its benefits equitably.’ There is an urgent need for systemic thinking to identify leverage points through which interventions will lead to the greatest change, while mitigating the risk of trade-offs, and to seek aligned policies that interact positively across multiple objectives.
4.2.2 Ensure the UN Food Systems Summit embeds a ‘food systems approach’ across key international policy processes
The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), planned for September 2021, will be the first time that world leaders have come together, along with the business community and civil society, to discuss food systems and how they must change. It is a key opportunity to embed food systems thinking in the international community.
The success of the summit in bringing a food systems approach into mainstream policy thinking will be measurable by the extent to which the UNFSS leads to the adoption of this approach across related policy processes – specifically, those associated with the UNFCCC and UNCBD. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) took a food systems approach in its recent special report on climate change and land, and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is developing a ‘nexus’ approach to linking food and biodiversity, these approaches need to become fully integrated into UNFCCC and UNCBD political discourse. This may, in turn, require capacity-building and greater coordination within governments, where there is often a view that agriculture is a primary industry within the purview of trade policy, whereas nutrition is a matter for public health policy, and promotion of consumption a lever for economic growth within the finance policy domain.
A central aim of the UNFSS should be to bring together interdependent policy threads, strongly articulating the co-benefits to be reaped through biodiversity-supporting food system reform. From this, the summit should aim to concentrate attention on a set of common goals for food system transformation:
- To preserve the planet, particularly in regard to climate and biodiversity;
- To drive prosperity, through support for more resilient farmer livelihoods and more inclusive and sustainable growth; and
- To increase health and well-being, by promoting the adoption of healthier diets and access to nature worldwide.
In particular, given the importance of demand-side changes to biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and improved public health and nutrition, the UNFSS should signal the urgent need to adjust demand patterns without undermining prosperity growth. Failure on the part of the UNFSS convenors and decision-makers to move beyond a narrow focus on food security and sustainable intensification of food systems would represent a significant missed opportunity and moreover a risk of current food system trends continuing.
4.2.3 Strengthen coherence between global agreements and national-level action
The coming year is crucial for international cooperation on biodiversity protection in particular, and for environmental governance more generally, as well as for food systems and climate change (see Box 4). But the success of commitments and agreements made at the global level in 2021 will also rest on the effectiveness and pace of policy development at the national level.
Three avenues for action in 2021 could together create virtuous circles of reinforcement between global agreements and action at the national level. These should consist of: (a) ongoing national dialogues to mirror international policy processes; (b) the development of global guidelines to inform and support national-level action; and (c) efforts to strengthen national accounting of the impacts of today’s food system, and to develop pathways for its transformation. The sections below expand upon each of these areas.
a) National dialogues to mirror global policy processes
To date, national progress on biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation has been too slow. Moreover, indicators are largely heading in the wrong direction. Similarly, countries around the world remain off course in terms of meeting globally agreed targets on ending malnutrition. If commitments emerging from the various summits in 2021 are to be meaningful and practicable, significant efforts will need to be channelled into national-level dialogues that explicitly address how global commitments – across the domains of climate policy, biodiversity and nutrition – will be translated into national action. In particular, it is crucial that national action focuses on a suite of ‘triple-duty interventions’ that deliver on biodiversity protection, climate change mitigation, and improved public health and well-being, in order to avoid policy incoherence leading to paralysis of action.
It is crucial that national action focuses on a suite of ‘triple-duty interventions’ that deliver on biodiversity protection, climate change mitigation, and improved public health and well-being.
National-level governance will be key to delivering land-use strategies that support biodiversity while delivering on other policy agendas, including climate change mitigation and nutrition security. Strong governance will be critical if nature-based solutions (NBS) (see Box 5) in the climate sphere are to be deployed in a way that enables land-sparing for biodiversity or wildlife-friendly agriculture. Financial incentives are likely to be important in some countries, where landowner income is crucial in determining how land is managed. In other countries, effective governance may depend more on shifting landowners’ relationship with the land and their perception of its value so that sustainable management is ultimately favoured over shorter-term exploitation. In other countries still, there will be an urgent need to identify and address current incentives that result in land conversion from native ecosystems to farmland or timber plantation, for example, and to replace these with incentives more likely to promote sustainability within the context of a common climate-, health- and biodiversity-maximizing NBS framework. Exploring how existing mechanisms (such as climate finance in the Paris Agreement) could be implemented at the national level to support such an approach to NBS is likely to be an important action point in 2021.
Similarly, concrete action on dietary change will need to be informed by national and cultural contexts. The Food Systems Dialogues series, established in 2018 by a group of five organizations, has provided an entry point for nationally tailored, multi-stakeholder discussions around food system reform that are informed by the latest science and policy thinking at an international level. These dialogues will feed into the UNFSS taking place in September; their continuation and roll-out across all countries among a diverse range of stakeholders will be a critical means of bridging the gap between policymaking at the global and national levels.
b) Global guidelines to inform and support national-level action
While national action to transform food systems in support of biodiversity, climate change mitigation and nutrition security will need to be driven by national-level processes, as outlined above, global guidelines could provide an important basis on which to coordinate action across the global food system and ensure that ambition at the international level is sufficiently high to yield meaningful change.
International decision-makers and advocates have a unique opportunity in 2021 to articulate clear guidance on principles for ‘system-positive’ investments that would yield changes to food systems in support of biodiversity conservation and broader environmental and human well-being. Responsible investment will be a core theme running through international forums and conferences in 2021. Growing pressure for a ‘green recovery’ from COVID-19 is focusing attention on the direction of financial flows – both public and private – in support of economic recovery that builds environmental sustainability and societal resilience to future disruptive threats. Green recovery efforts will see mainstream economic policy decisions dovetail with climate and environmental negotiations, opening new doors for international financial actors such as the World Bank and IMF to engage with processes including the UNFSS and UNFCCC and UNCBD summits. As a result, it may be possible to develop common guidelines for responsible investment that drives prosperity while delivering benefits across biodiversity, climate and public health agendas.
A second area where a global framework or guidelines would be helpful would be in informing investment decisions in nature-based solutions (NBS, Box 5), particularly if these are to be deployed in a way that mitigates known trade-offs for biodiversity and ecosystems. Organizations such as IUCN have advocated a standardized approach to assessing the strength of a given nature-based solution against a broad set of criteria, covering biodiversity, society and the economy. At the same time, investment actors such as CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) have called for NBS to be recognized by decision-makers across policy spheres as a cross-cutting tool that requires coherence and coordination between the areas of climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development if negative impacts are to be avoided. Greater coordination and dialogue between the UNCBD, UNFCCC and UNFSS processes on NBS in 2021, and a collective commitment to identifying core principles for effective NBS options, would mark an important first step towards coherent and responsible investment in this space. Core principles should include the potential of NBS to restore functioning ecosystems and remove carbon dioxide (which would be sequestered by restoring vegetation, for example), and a transparent process to prioritize such aspects over commercial interests (for example, timber plantations for logging) (see Box 5).
The third area in which global guidelines could support national-level action would be in dietary change, particularly in promoting the adoption of healthy diets consisting of sustainably produced food. With strong and growing scientific evidence of the importance of dietary change as a key route to improving public health, mitigating climate change and keeping within critical planetary boundaries, adopting healthier diets should be high on the agenda of international discussions in 2021. To a significant extent, the design and implementation of dietary guidelines will need to be nationally tailored and culturally informed. However, international bodies that already advise on the principles for a healthy diet and sustainable food systems – particularly the World Health Organization and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization – are in a strong position to endorse principles for healthy and sustainable diets, such as those put forward by the EAT-Lancet Commission and leading academics behind the commission’s findings. Similarly, the UNFSS offers an opportune moment for world leaders to commit to a common set of principles for diets that are healthy, accessible and environmentally sustainable, while pledges at the Nutrition for Growth Summit could align explicitly with these principles. Pledges could outline concrete plans for tackling the double burden of malnutrition in a sustainable manner that protects biodiversity in support of long-term food and nutrition security.
