ACT4FOOD ACT4CHANGE UNFCCC COP26 POSITION STATEMENT

3 November 2021

Act4Food Act4Change is a collective force of young people that have extraordinary potential to mobilize and influence tangible, positive change in our world’s food systems. Youth across the world are rallying behind #Act4Food #Act4Change. The innovative ideas and solutions of youth must be supported beyond the UN Food Systems Summit.

Our pledge brings together young people from around the world to focus on their personal actions as a contribution to system change.  We came to COP26 with the support of 104997 youth actors from different countries, economic and cultural backgrounds who signed our pledge Actions4food.

Actions4change provides governments, businesses, UN agencies and young people the solutions needed to create food systems that are just for people and the planet.

Global food systems are primary drivers of the climate crisis contributing to over 30% of GHG emissions, biodiversity loss and nature destruction. With over 1/3rd of the world’s land mass devoted to agriculture, our food systems play a major role in how much land can be spared to the application of nature-based solutions that can provide benefits for people, biodiversity and the climate. Transforming our food systems is thus crucial to tackle the climate crisis simultaneously providing health benefits to humans and biodiversity.

Today, more than half of the world’s population is under the age of 30. As a collective force, young people have extraordinary potential to mobilize and influence global movements. Act4Food Act4Change as a youth-led movement is galvanising action to defeat hunger, improve health and heal the planet. Our movement is carried out by gathering people with a simple pledge. The pledge and list of actions brings together young people from around the world to focus on their personal action as a contribution to system change.

We demand parties participating in COP26 to recognize the interlinkages between the climate and food systems. In particular, we demand to include food systems solutions as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Without Food system commitments in NDCs, it will be much more difficult to stay below 1.5 degrees warming. We need to halt deforestation, apply nature-positive regenerative agriculture, and food waste and reduce the consumption of animal-based protein worldwide for this objective to be reached.