The 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) is taking place from 6 to 18 November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. More than 45,000 people representing Parties, UN and regional organizations, businesses, civil society, the scientific community, indigenous and local communities registered to the Conference to jointly enhance and accelerate the implementation of climate action and follow up on our collective commitments and pledges.
This year, like never before, food systems are part of the agenda of COP27. UN-Nutrition, the United Nations coordinating mechanism for nutrition, will actively engage – as in the past few years – to increase awareness about the interlinkages between diets, food systems and climate change, and to highlight the importance of addressing nutritional and environmental challenges through joint policy options to generate co-benefits for people and the planet. UN agencies play an important role in supporting international, national and sub-national policymakers in creating evidence-based policies and programmes that provide co-benefits for nutrition and the environment. In particular, at COP27, UN-Nutrition will advocate for integrating healthy diets from sustainable food systems and improved nutrition in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).
Several events will address nutrition, including the ones listed below:
- On Tuesday, 8 November (18:00 EET, Climate Action Hub), the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Global Environment Facility (GEF) will host the Nutrition and Climate Financing: How to Walk the Talk side event. Nancy Aburto, Deputy Director of the Food and Nutrition Division at FAO will speak in the event.
- On Friday, 11 November (13:15 – 14:45 EET, Khufu room, Blue Zone) UN-Nutrition member UN Environment, supported by the Secretariat, is teaming up with Costa Rica, Switzerland, Chatham House, The Natural Step Israel, Life and Environment (L&E), and United Cities and Local Governments UCLG/ICLEI, for the event titled Ensuring healthy diets for all in face of a Warming Planet: Challenges, Opportunities, and Solutions” Enhancing knowledge, inclusion & enablers for action. The session will also pre-launch and present the key finding of the forthcoming UN-Nutrition discussion paper “Environmental and nutrition interlinkages and the triple planetary crisis”. Watch the event live on YouTube.
- Saturday, 12 November will be the Adaptation and Agriculture Day (learn more about the thematic days here) and will provide the opportunity to discuss issues such as food security and nutrition, food systems transformation, food crises etc. Several interesting discussions will take place throughout the day, including the following:
- Climate-smart gender equitable initiatives in small-scale aquatic food systems for sustainable healthy diets (13:00-14:00 EET, Food and Agriculture Pavilion). The UN-Nutrition Executive Secretary will moderate this event which builds on the findings of the UN-Nutrition discussion paper The Role of Aquatic Foods in Sustainable Healthy Diets. (flyer).
- Integrating nutrition and food security in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) (14:00-15:15 EET, WHO Health Pavilion). Organized by UN-Nutrition, the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and others, this side event intends to raise awareness of the links between climate change, health and nutrition. It will discuss concrete solutions that target both climate change adaptation and mitigation, with a particular focus on integrating nutrition and food security in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). If you are not attending COP27 in person, you can watch the event live at https://bit.ly/3NwhZeQ.
- Official launch of the Nutrition and Climate Change Initiative Official Launch (I-CAN) (14:00-16:00 EET, Presidency room 20).
- Quality, not just quantity: Addressing “hidden hunger” on a warming planet (16:00-17:00 EET, Business Pavilion, Auditorium A). The UN-Nutrition Executive Secretary will participate in the panel and discuss the need to transform food systems to address malnutrition in all its forms.
- On Monday 14 November (11:30-12:30 EET, Food and Agriculture Pavilion), the Gender, Climate and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN) and CGIAR will host the event Measuring progress on adaptation and mitigation of women in agriculture: What does it take? The UN-Nutrition Executive Secretary will participate in the panel discussion.
- On Thursday 17 November (08:30-09:30 EET, Food and Agriculture Pavilion), FAO and partners will highlight innovative tools and mechanisms to bring the ambition of nutrition-sensitive, climate-smart agrifood systems to action in the event titled Nutrition-sensitive and climate-smart agrifood systems: Tools and options to move to implementation.
For the first time in the history of the UN Conference of Parties, COP27 will have a pavilion dedicated to food and agriculture. Organized by FAO, CGIAR and The Rockefeller Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Pavilion will host a rich program of events that will show how agrifood systems are part of the solution to the climate crisis, bringing together government and community leaders, farmers, academics and other experts who are taking decisions on innovative solutions to help countries take effective climate action.
Check out the Food and Agriculture Pavilion program here: https://cop27foodpavilion.cgiar.org/
Small-scale farmers produce up to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries but receive less than 1.7 per cent of climate finance. Also this year, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will be at COP27 to amplify the voices of small-scale producers and promote their role in climate change responses and resilient food systems.
Check out the IFAD Pavilion program here: https://www.ifad.org/en/web/events/cop27
Climate change is already affecting people’s health and will continue to do so at an accelerating rate unless urgent action is taken. The World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust and partners will host the Health Pavilion that will convene the global health community and its partners to ensure health and equity are placed at the center of the climate negotiations.
Check out the Health Pavilion program here: https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2022/11/06/default-calendar/cop27-health-pavilion
Check out the list of COP27 official side events and exhibits at: https://seors.unfccc.int/applications/seors/reports/events_list.html?session_id=COP%2027
