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Publication | 2024

Public Climate Finance for Food Systems Transformation

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Highlights: 

Between 2017 to 2022, the percentage of climate finance flowing to food systems has fallen.

  • Between 2017 and 2022, public climate finance almost doubled, growing from USD 321 billion to 640 billion. However, the percentage of climate finance for food systems fell from 3% to 2.5% during the same period. 

  • Only 1.5% was being allocated to sustainable, agroecological food systems interventions. Of the USD 16.3 billion of public climate finance that flowed to food systems, only USD 9.1 billion could be labelled as “sustainable” based on our predefined keywords. 

  • To unlock the mitigation and adaptation potential in food systems while contributing to biodiversity, food sovereignty, and sustainable development around the world, climate finance — both public and private — must increase by orders of magnitude and flow directly to underinvested climate solutions: smallholder farmers and fishers, Indigenous Peoples, healthy food environments, and building inclusive, equitable food systems policy and governance. 

Climate finance for food does not match the significant emissions and hidden costs of food systems, nor does it take into account the current impacts of climate change affecting the millions of people who rely on food and agriculture for their livelihoods. 

  • Food systems account for one-third of global emissions and 15% of fossil fuel use globally each year. The hidden costs of our current industrial food systems is approximately USD 12 trillion annually.

  • The USD 16.3 billion currently allocated to food systems from public climate finance is significantly below the cost of transition to sustainable, agroecological food systems estimated at USD 430 to 500 billion per year.

  • While over 90% of current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) mention adaptation and mitigation in the agriculture sector as a priority, the scale of climate finance going toward food systems does not align with the 1.5°C (2.7°F) Paris Agreement targets.

  • By 2025, updated NDCs must outline clear plans for investments from public climate finance and rapid redirection of subsidies away from the USD 670 billion a year of harmful, polluting fossil fuel–intensive food systems and toward sustainable, agroecological food systems that work for people and the planet.

  • For an effective transformation, investment is needed across all areas of food systems. 

  • Projects that target healthy diets and address food loss and waste receive only 6% of the public climate finance going to sustainable, agroecological food systems. 

  • The new collective quantified goal on climate finance negotiated at COP29 needs to channel more funds toward urgently needed climate action through adaptation, mitigation, and to address loss and damage in support of resilient and equitable food systems. 

Investment in food systems reaps multiple co-benefits.

  • Quantifying mitigation efforts in food systems is challenging. But with half of public climate finance flowing to adaptation, sustainable, agroecological food systems interventions are ripe for investment and will result in multiple co-benefits: resilience, improved livelihoods, poverty reduction, food security, and mitigation.

  • Farmers, fishers, pastoralists, food producers, and Indigenous Peoples who face the brunt of climate change lack access to climate finance to increase their climate resilience. New finance mechanisms are required to ensure funds flow directly to these groups and their organizations.

  • The cost of food systems transformation in the Global South cannot be shouldered by those countries alone.

  • New financial instruments have to increase climate finance from the North to South, while also forging new relationships that disrupt dependencies. 

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