This report from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food calls for action in seven areas to transform the food system. The seven areas are drawn from a synthesis of the Global Alliance’s previous dialogue events and reports. For each area, the report also presents a “Beacon of Hope” - an example of the action being successfully implemented.

This report details a workshop held jointly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - the first collaboration between the two institutions. The workshop aimed to clarify the complex interactions between climate change and biodiversity. The report emphasises that these two issues must be addressed together.

This paper examines the climate commitments of the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies - summarised in this table - which together produce around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture. It also compares the companies’ projected future emissions to the Paris climate commitments of the country in which each company is headquartered (while noting that the Paris Agreement does not view climate responsibility in these terms), and traces the political influence of the 10 largest US meat and dairy companies.

The Sixth Carbon Budget from the UK’s Climate Change Committee sets out the UK’s permissible emissions between 2033 and 2037. Food-relevant recommendations include reducing consumption of meat and dairy by 20% by 2030, adopting low-carbon farming practices while raising productivity, and shifting some land use towards reforestation and bioenergy production.

On 16 November 2020, the LSHTM Centre on Climate Change & Planetary Health and food-sharing app OLIO hosted a discussion on the priority areas where change can contribute to a net zero future of food, such as tackling waste in the current food system and switching to healthy sustainable diets. A video recording of the event is now available.

In this BBC Future piece, Emily Kasriel uses a communication approach called “deep listening” to better understand how dairy farmers think about climate change. Kasriel describes deep listening: “I try to be completely present, using deep listening. I focus on their words, but also try to sense the meaning behind them to better understand their world view.” She talks to dairy farmers who hold varying views about the validity of climate science and the future of the sector.

This report has been produced by the Farming for 1.5°C independent enquiry on farming and climate change for Scotland. It sets out a pathway to net zero for Scottish farming, arguing that farmers and land managers will have to “revolutionise current practices” to reduce environmental harm and sequester carbon, and that multifunctional land use management (including agroecology, restored peatland, planted woodland and multispecies pastures) needs to become the norm.

This piece from Carbon Brief explains the UK’s Ten Point Plan for a “Green Industrial Revolution” and rounds up media coverage and reactions to each of the points.

An recording of the launch event for the UK’s National Food Strategy, held on 29 July 2020, is now available online. The National Food Strategy is a year-long review of the UK’s food system. Read more about the review here and read the FCRN’s summary of Part One of the review here.