COP28 Daily Digest: Everything You Need To Know in Food and Climate News – Day 11

Welcome to Day 11 of #COP28 – it’s almost the end of the road. In Green Queen’s COP28 Daily Digest, our editorial team curates the must-reads, the must-bookmarks and the must-knows from around the interwebs to help you ‘skim the overwhelm’.

Catch up: DAY 1 – DAY 2 – DAYS 3 & 4 – DAY 5 – DAY 6 – DAY 7 – REST DAY – DAY 8 – DAY 9 – DAY 10

Headlines You Need To Know

The COP-related news you cannot miss.

GLOBAL STOCKTAKE ‘PHASE-OUT’ GONE, FOOD SYSTEMS GET A MENTION: The most recent Global Stocktake’s latest draft agreement is out and climate activists are “lamenting regression”, with Greenpeace describing it as a “a dog’s dinner!” and Small Island States “sharply critical” of the new text. While fossil fuel cuts are mentioned, any reference to a ‘phase-out’ or a ‘phase-down’ has been removed. The CEO of watchdog Global Witness, who has been critical throughout the summit about the number of oil and gas lobbyists present, says this is ‘no surprise.’

UAE CLIMATE MINISTER SAYS FOOD WILL BE CENTRAL TO ALL FUTURE COPS: UAE climate minister and COP28 food systems lead Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri has said that following this year’s summit being the first food-focused one, “food systems will now be centre stage in all future COPs”. This is because “even if you were able to fix the just energy transition and go completely renewable, you still wouldn’t be able to reach the 1.5°C if you don’t solve the food systems issue”.

BANKERS KEEN TO CASH IN ON $1T CLIMATE MARKET: Banks from Wall Street and the City of London – including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Barclays – have been building up carbon trading and finance desks to finance carbon sequestration projects, trade carbon credits and advise corporate clients that are buying offsets post-COP28.

COP28 PRESIDENT CALLS CIRCULAR MEETING TO BREAK FOSSIL FUEL DEADLOCK: While over 100 countries would agree to a fossil fuel phaseout, opposition still remains, but time doesn’t. To speed up negotiations and break the deadlock, COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber called a majlis, an Arabian-style conference that sees participants sit in a circle and talk freely to increase transparency.

JOINT RESPONSE FROM NGOS HIGHLIGHT GAPS IN FAO ROADMAP: A day after the FAO unveiled its agrifood roadmap to 1.5°C, a joint letter from organisations including ProVeg International, Mercy for Animals, Friends of the Earth, and Changing Markets Foundation – as well as Green Queen – has highlighted gaps in the publication. The focus areas are dietary shifts, animal agriculture, methane, fisheries and aquaculture, crops, forestry and food systems, subsidy reforms, and the One Health approach.

STRATEGY UNVEILED TO IMPROVE RURAL & URBAN FOOD SYSTEMS: The Transforming Urban Rural Food Systems (TURFS) Consortium has launched its Strategy for Food Systems Transformation to improve how we produce and consume food in urban and rural areas.

GLOBAL TASKFORCE LAUNCHES AGRIFOOD CLIMATE ACTION TOOLKIT: A coalition of organisations – including the FAO, WWF, GAFF, Climate Focus, NDC Partnership, CGIAR, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT – has launched a toolkit calling for accelerated food systems, agriculture and climate action, and urging governments to align and integrate those actions within national strategies.

PARAMETRIC INSURANCE FOR MANGROVE FOREST FISHERMEN: AXA Climate has partnered with ClimateSeed and AXA Seguros Mexico to develop an innovative parametric insurance product to protect fishermen communities responsible for the restoration of San Crisanto mangrove forests in Mexico against the impacts of hurricanes. If a natural disaster occurs, this guarantee helps facilitate rapid financing to restore damaged mangrove forests and repair related fishing and ecotourism infrastructure.

COUNTRIES SIGN UP TO FRESHWATER CHALLENGE: Over 30 countries – including Zambia, Liberia, Canada, the UK and Norway – have signed up to the Freshwater Challenge, pledging to set freshwater ecosystem preservation targets and include them in their nationally determined contributions. The aim is to restore 300,000 kms of rivers and 350 million hectares of inland wetlands by 2030.

CELL AGRITECH AND UMAMI BIOWORKS ANNOUNCE LARGE-SCALE ASIA CULTIVATED MEAT FACILITY: Malaysia’s Cell AgriTech and Singapore’s Umami Bioworks have jointly announced that they are scaling up their capacities through a 96,000 sq ft solar-powered facility in Kedah, Malaysia, which will be able to produce 3,000 tons of cultivated meat and seafood annually. It is slated to be operational by Q1 2025.

Key #COP28 Reports

The food and climate reports you need to know about today.

Climate pledges not enough to stay under 1.5°C: The International Energy Agency’s assessment of ongoing COP28 pledges has found that we will still be off-track to limit warming to 1.5°C. Current commitments would cut GHG emissions by four gigatons – less than a third of what’s needed to stick to the post-industrial heating target.

Fossil fuels on our plates: Friends of the Earth’s French edition, Les Amis de la Terre, has published a report highlighting the close links between the fossil fuel and fertiliser industries. It explains that freeing ourselves from both can preserve the climate, biodiversity and our control over our food.

Key actions to address the food crisis: A science brief from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Global Resilience Partnership explores why the current food crisis has escalated so quickly up to global proportions, listing five key actions for policymakers to address.

Awesome Resources From Media Friends

A curation of our favourite reads of the day – excellent guides, explainers and op-eds from around the web.

‘The help of thought-leaders’: Climate journalist and Drilled podcast host Amy Westervelt shares her three takeaways on the Global Stocktake letdown (see headlines above) on social media, detailing who made this disappointing turn of events possible.

Keeping track: So much is going on, it’s hard to keep track. So Carbon Brief has an interactive guide for you to get the latest updates on everything happening at COP28. Deputy editor Simon Evans has also made a handy graphic to show progress on key agreements.

Ridiculous sums: In a fiery speech, Re-Earth Initiative co-founder Xiye Bastida slammed fossil fuel subsidies. “By the end of this press conference, the fossil fuel industry will have received more money than some countries are giving to the loss and damage fund.” It certainly puts things into perspective.

Food sustainability pledges: As it is the first food-focused conference, there have been loads of announcements. To help you catch up, Food Dive has pulled together the biggest ones in this super-helpful list.

Scientist opinion on adaptation goals: In a guest post for Carbon Brief, six scientists from around the world discuss what an ambitious global goal on climate change adaptation would look like at COP28.

Lighter Green Fun

Funny stuff, weird stuff, random stuff related to COP you may enjoy.

Tweet out to help out: We’re on the penultimate day of COP28, with major decisions yet to come. If you want to keep the pressure on your leaders to do the right thing, Global Citizen has a customisable tweet template for you to spread the word.

Follow all our #COP28 coverage. Like what you’re reading? Share it!