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Climate change and biodiversity

Toolkit Intro Why Key Asks Other Sectors

Intro

Integrating nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive actions into climate investments and programming can support the prevention of malnutrition and accelerate the achievement of climate and environmental goals.

Beyond the benefits of improved access to safe and nutritious foods as part of healthy diets, a nutrition-sensitive approach could minimize potential trade-offs across activities, create business opportunities, increasing income among communities in vulnerable situations and ultimately support environmental protection.

Why

Why the sector needs to get involved

  • Climate change and malnutrition are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity today.
  • Nutrition, climate change and biodiversity are deeply connected: if one deteriorates, the others can too. This also entails that if one improves, the other can improve too.
  • Four key systems linking climate and nutrition are agrifood, water, social protection, and health.
  • Current agrifood systems are responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, 80 percent of deforestation, 70 percent of freshwater use, and are the single greatest cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss. The way we produce and consume food has a significant impact on the environment, with dietary patterns being influenced by agrifood systems but also shaping supply systems with different environmental footprints.
  • Tackling malnutrition and enabling access to healthy diets from sustainable agrifood systems can help reduce greenhouse emissions, reduce pressure on natural resources such as soil and water, preserve biodiversity while deepening the impact on resilience building and vulnerability reduction.
  • Dietary shifts towards more diverse and sustainable options can lead to cascading changes in agrifood systems, by driving an increase in production of a greater diversity of foods produced and conserving genetic resources for food and agriculture.
  • Reducing food loss and waste is central to achieve food security and nutrition, improve the efficient use of natural resources, and helps withstand the consequences of the increased frequency and intensity of weather events and increased incidence of pests and diseases in a changing climate.
  • Integrated actions across agrifood systems as well as water, social protection, and health systems can address both climate change and malnutrition and provide solutions to these concomitant and mutually reinforcing crises.

Key asks

Example of integrated actions from agrifood systems:

  • Diversify crop, animal and aquatic production while protecting genetic resources.
  • Manage soils sustainably.
  • Reduce food loss and waste.
  • Promote consumer awareness and behaviour change actions.
  • Enable sustainable local food markets.
  • Practice sustainable public food procurement.
  • Align policies and programmes across the agrifood systems for biodiversity-climate-water-nutrition benefits.
  • Implement food-based dietary guidelines that consider sustainability.
  • Reduce gender inequalities in livelihoods, access to resources, and resilience in agrifood systems.