Global 
Challenge
Agriculture and food systems face rising climate risks, mounting pressure on smallholders, and declining climate finance that falls short of global commitments.
Solution
The Emirates Declaration commits 159 countries to strengthen their commitment to sustainable agriculture and food systems, and to improving the amount and quality of climate finance for the sector.
Overview
At the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in 2023, governments adopted the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action. A total of 159 countries endorsed the declaration during the World Climate Action Summit. The declaration links climate policy and food systems, and it calls for stronger action in agriculture in parallel with wider climate efforts.
It sets five key goals that cover adaptation, food security, livelihoods, water resources sustainability, and maximizing environmental outcomes. To achieve these goals, it outlines efforts and actions that governments intended to pursue before COP30. These efforts focus on integrating agriculture and food systems into national climate and development strategies, revisiting public support, increasing access to finance, scaling innovation, and strengthening the multilateral trading system.
Goals for agriculture, food security, and resilience
First, the declaration calls for scaling up adaptation and resilience activities that reduce the vulnerability of all farmers, fisherfolk, and other food producers to climate impacts. It refers to financial and technical support for solutions, capacity building, infrastructure, and innovations – including early warning systems – that support sustainable food security, production, and nutrition, while conserving, protecting, and restoring nature.
Second, it focuses on food security and nutrition, especially for people in vulnerable situations. It highlights social protection systems and safety nets, school feeding and public procurement programs, targeted research and innovation, and attention to the specific needs of women, children and youth, Indigenous Peoples, smallholders, family farmers, local communities, and persons with disabilities.
Third, the declaration supports workers in agriculture and food systems, including women and youth, whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change. It refers to maintaining inclusive, decent work, through context-appropriate measures that can increase, adapt, and diversify incomes, so that work remains inclusive and decent as conditions change.
Fourth, it highlights integrated water management in agriculture and food systems at all levels. It calls for approaches that keep water use sustainable and reduce negative impacts on communities that depend on closely linked water and food systems.
Finally, the declaration aims to maximize climate and environmental benefits – while containing and reducing harmful impacts – associated with agriculture and food systems. It mentions conserving, protecting, and restoring land and natural ecosystems, improving soil health and biodiversity, and shifting from higher-emission practices to more sustainable production and consumption approaches, including lower food loss and waste and greater use of sustainable aquatic “blue foods.”
Efforts and actions to deliver the declaration
The declaration also describes efforts and actions that countries intend to pursue to deliver these goals. One commitment is to carry out broad, transparent, and inclusive engagement, in line with national contexts, so agriculture and food systems are integrated into National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), long‑term strategies, National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), and other related strategies in advance of COP30, which took place in 2025 in Belém, Brazil.
Additionally, countries commit to revisit or redirect policies and public support related to agriculture and food systems. The declaration links these efforts to activities that raise incomes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and strengthen resilience, productivity, livelihoods, nutrition, water efficiency, and human, animal, and ecosystem health, while reducing food loss, food waste, and ecosystem loss and degradation.
Regarding finance, the declaration calls on countries to continue to scale up and improve access to all forms of finance from the public, philanthropic, and private sources. It mentions blended instruments, public-‑private partnerships, and related approaches that can support adaptation and transformation in agriculture and food systems.
For science and innovation, the declaration urges countries to speed up and expand science‑based and evidence‑based innovations, including local and Indigenous knowledge. It emphasizes innovations that raise sustainable productivity and production, strengthen ecosystem resilience, and improve livelihoods, including for rural communities, smallholders, family farmers, and other producers.
The declaration also calls for a stronger rules‑based, non‑discriminatory, open, fair, inclusive, equitable, and transparent multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organization at its center.
Tracking progress toward COP30
The Emirates Declaration set a two‑year period to monitor progress and prepare a report for COP30. No dedicated meeting on the declaration’s progress took place at COP29. Instead, a related high-level dialogue on accelerating national climate contributions in agriculture and food systems focused on climate technologies, policy, and finance.
The declaration was reaffirmed at COP30.
Acknowledgements
This report is based on publicly available information on the Emirates Declaration and on a Japanese briefing note prepared by the reporter, Kei Kurushima of IGES.
Related information
- Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action
https://www.maff.go.jp/j/kokusai/kokusei/kanren_sesaku/attach/pdf/COP28-2.pdf - Japanese Briefing Note by the reporter
https://www.iges.or.jp/en/pub/agriculture-and-climate-change-cop27-onward/ja
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