FAO at COP30: Championing just transitions in agrifood systems

Rome-  Sustainable and resilient agrifood systems are essential for achieving the Paris Agreement targets on climate change while ensuring food security and nutrition for present and future generations.

This was the overarching message delivered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil.

FAO called for a just transition in agrifood systems, aligning climate policies on adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage with agrifood systems transformation goals, and ensuring coherence across agriculture, social protection, environment and nutrition.

Throughout the conference, FAO promoted equitable access to climate finance for those impacted the most, emphasizing social inclusion, locally led approaches, and the strengthening of social protection systems. These efforts aim to enhance the resilience and adaptive capacity of vulnerable family farmers, small-scale producers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Tangible progress at climate talks

COP30 delivered substantial advances on the just transition agenda, and social protection emerged as a key priority.

On 7 November, 43 countries and the European Union signed the Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty and Human-Centred Climate Action during the COP30 Leaders’ Summit. The declaration outlines commitments on social protection, small-scale food producers and forest communities. It calls on international organizations, including FAO, to support countries in monitoring progress.

Signatories pledged to expand social protection coverage in climate-vulnerable developing countries by two percentage points per year. The declaration also emphasizes adapting social protection systems to climate impacts, mobilizing climate finance, and integrating social protection into climate strategies, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and other national climate strategies. 

Momentum continued during the negotiations at COP30. The Belém Adaptation Indicators, tracking collective global progress toward the Global Goal on Adaptation under the Paris Agreement, include two indicators on poverty and livelihoods with a specific focus on social protection.

Social protection also featured prominently in the decision of the United Arab Emirates Just Transition Work Programme to develop a ‘just transition mechanism’ to turn global commitments into concrete actions.

In addition, the COP Action Agenda launched  the Climate-Resilient Social Protection and Smallholder Agriculture Finance Partnership, aimed at driving action on social protection and smallholder farming.

FAO’s involvement on social protection at COP30

FAO partnered with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) to organize an official side event on 12 November. Reflecting the agenda set out in the Belém  Declaration, the event shone the spotlight on social protection as a driver of human-centred climate action, climate resilience and a just transition.

It provided a platform for key constituencies at COP to voice their concerns and priorities, including young people, women and other groups directly affected by climate risks who see social protection as a critical part of the solution. Government representatives from Cambodia, the Gambia and Brazil also showcased progress in extending and adapting social protection in response to the challenges of climate change.

Closing the event, Julia Wolf, FAO Deputy Team Lead Climate Change, underscored the need to place livelihoods, decent work and social protection as central elements for advancing inclusive climate action aiming at a “just transitions”. “The United Nations can use its convening power to ensure an ‘all of government’ and ‘all of society approach’ when supporting countries in this regard,” she said. “Empowering women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples, she added, is vital for enhancing climate resilience and supporting just and inclusive agrifood systems transformation,” she added.