Intervention Area - Food Forward NDCs

Select intervention area

Food Environment

Interventions that enable a physical, economic, political or socio-cultural change in how stakeholders engage with sustainable food systems.

Conducting food system assessments

Regulating food quality and safety Regulating advertising of unhealthy and unsustainable food Improving physical and economic access to healthy and sustainable foods Developing and improving agriculture in urban and peri-urban areas and enhancing local food markets

Food Governance

Interventions that facilitate equitable, coherent, coordinated and transparent design, implementation and monitoring of food system measures.

Conducting food system assessments

Strengthening land-use and freshwater governance Assessing food system impacts Strengthening inclusive multi-stakeholder approaches in food governance Mainstreaming agroecology principles for food governance

Food Production

Interventions for climate change mitigation and adaptation that help to maintain and restore ecosystems, improve soil and water quality, and that increase availability of healthy food for all.

Conducting food system assessments

Transitioning to nature-positive and climate-resilient freshwater management Reducing land-use change and conversion of natural ecosystems for food production Implementing sustainable fisheries management Implementing sustainable aquaculture management systems Sequestering carbon in soil and enhancing soil health in crop systems Shifting to clean energy at the farm level Reducing emissions from rice cultivation Implementing silvo-pastoral systems Implementing agroforestry practices Implementing improved management practices in grasslands Reducing emissions from livestock through sustainable management practices Implementing integrated crop-livestock management systems Implementing nature-positive food production practices

Food Supply Chains

Interventions to reduce food loss and waste and to decarbonize supply chain activities in transport, processing and distribution.

Conducting food system assessments

Reducing emissions from energy use in food storage, cold chains, transport and processing Reducing post-harvest food loss at storage, transport and processing levels Reducing post-harvest food loss in fisheries supply chains Building circular food systems in cities

Food Consumption

Interventions to enable preparation and consumption of sustainable, nutritious, and healthy diets.

Conducting food system assessments

Introducing food systems-based dietary guidelines Integrate healthy and sustainable diets in public procurement Reducing food waste in gastronomy sector, retail and at household level Creating access to clean energy sources and technologies for cooking Increasing demand for sustainable healthy diets

About Food Forward NDCs

A tool to enhance NDC ambition and implementation for food systems transformation

Food Forwards NDCs is a consolidated collection of guidance in more than 30 specific areas of food systems transformation, organized across five priority areas - namely, food environment, food governance, food production, food supply chains and food consumption. The content can be used to identify relevant policy options, implementation measures, their climate and sustainable development benefits, potential trade-offs and examples of their implementation in practice.

The content provides the basis to inform a holistic policymaking and implementation approach by considering the interaction between different policy objectives within the food system and a series of co-benefits and trade-offs of each policy option.

Food Forward NDCs is a collaborative effort led by WWF and Climate Focus with technical collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Environment Programme, NDC Partnership, FAIRR Initiative, CGIAR, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Biovision Foundation, and the Agroecology Coalition, and with financial support from the German government - specifically, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

What are Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)?

A Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a document that outlines a country’s commitments on climate action, as required by Parties to the Paris Agreement. The NDC outlines the country’s plans for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement and for adapting to the impacts of climate change. The NDC may also contain information on national needs for climate finance, technology or capacity building.

The Paris Agreement requires each Party to communicate its NDC to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) every five years. The first round of mandatory NDC submission ended in 2021 (with a one-year delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic) and the second round of NDCs is due in 2025. Each NDC must represent a forward progression (e.g. in its emissions targets, policies and intervention areas) compared to previous iterations, and must reflect the country’s highest possible ambition. NDCs often contain common elements from country to country, but they can differ significantly based on national circumstances, institutional responsibilities and respective capacities and resources.

For the second round of NDCs due in 2025, each country must provide the information necessary to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding (ICTU), when communicating the NDC. This information must include:

Quantifiable information on the reference point (including, as appropriate, a base year);
Time frames and/or periods for implementation;
Scope and coverage;
Planning processes;
Assumptions and methodological approaches, including those for estimating and accounting for anthropogenic GHG emissions and, as appropriate, removals;
How the Party considers its NDC is fair and ambitious in the light of its national circumstances;
How the NDC contributes toward achieving the objective of the UNFCCC as set out in Article 2 of the Convention.

NDCs are linked to two major feedback mechanisms under the Paris Agreement: the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) and the Global Stocktake (GST).

As part of the ETF, countries will report on their greenhouse gas emissions, progress toward their NDCs, adaptation measures, and support provided and received in Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) from 2024. The ETF also includes procedures for reviewing the submitted reports. The information gathered through the ETF informs the GST.
Through the GST, countries assess their collective progress toward the long-term climate goals of the Paris Agreement. The GST takes place every five years and is intended to inform the next round of NDCs. The first GST concluded at COP28 in 2023 and is supposed to inform the NDCs that countries need to submit by 2025. The GST helps policymakers and stakeholders strengthen their climate policies and commitments, paving the way for accelerated action.

NDCs present a key opportunity for identifying domestic mitigation and adaptation needs and measures to tackle climate change through agriculture and food systems.

Why do we need to take action on food systems?

We cannot achieve the Paris Agreement targets without transforming our food systems as they account for around third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Food systems emit over 17 billion tonnes of CO2e annually, with agricultural production and land-use change making up over 70 percent of food systems emissions.

The Paris Agreement sets an ambitious goal for climate change mitigation that requires urgent action in all sectors. Parties agreed to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit warming below 1.5°C at the end of the century. For food systems, this implies a rapid overhaul of how we produce, distribute and consume food – by shifting towards nature-positive production, reducing food loss and waste and transitioning towards healthy and sustainable diets.

The good news is there are immense opportunities to mitigate emissions by sustainably transforming food systems.

Measures at the food production-level (like addressing land-use change and agricultural emissions) combined with demand-side measures (like reducing food loss and waste) could contribute to around 20 percent of the global mitigation needed in 2050 to deliver on the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target. Of the emissions mitigation resulting from nature-based solutions, 80 percent of 2030 mitigation opportunity is closely linked to food systems. In addition to reducing emissions, a sustainable food system transformation – which includes shifting diets, nature-positive agriculture, and a diversified food system – improves food system resilience, which can positively impact the lives of the nearly 4 billion people who live in households that depend on food systems for their subsistence and livelihoods.

How can this Food Forwards NDCs help?

The content in the FOOD FORWARD NDCs establishes a basis for holistic policy development and implementation. It takes into account the interaction between different policy objectives in the food system, as well as the associated co-benefits and trade-offs of each policy option. Beyond concrete mitigation measures, the guidance also provides users with relevant supplementary information, up-to-date literature, and links to helpful external resources and tools.

The tool does not intend to prescribe solutions, but instead present a menu of policy options as a starting point for decision makers to further develop and implement on-the ground measures for food systems transformation based on national and local contexts. The material ultimately aims to align countries’ NDCs with a food systems approach by serving a dual purpose in both:

Supporting NDC implementation by identifying and presenting concrete practices and measures that enable systemic shifts in food systems to meet NDC targets, and
Supporting NDC enhancement by providing accessible guidance to help countries ramp-up their ambition on food systems in forthcoming NDC updates.