Key points:
- Despite contributing a third of global GHG emissions, there is no comprehensive pathway to reduce emissions from food systems that outlines clear targets and timetables for countries to work towards.
- Considerable trade-offs and co-benefits in the agrifood system complicate the creation of a holistic framework. Few net-zero agrifood scenarios consider all elements of social, economic and environmental sustainability, taking into account affordability, rural economies or cultural elements. Existing pathways for reducing emissions in food systems, such as the FAO roadmap for achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5°C threshold, fail to consider biodiversity, health and other targets.
- Many key targets already exist, either as globally agreed-upon goals, adopted by up to 196 countries, or science-based targets established in academic literature. Our research assessed 55 targets relevant to food and agriculture that provide some direction for countries, but exist in a confusing landscape with gaps, overlaps, differing levels of quantification and no legal enforceability.
- To develop a useful pathway for food systems, a full set of targets needs to be agreed and integrated into a comprehensive pathway based on the latest data to minimise trade-offs and maximise co-benefits.
Route to action: The need for a pathway for food systems transformation
Food systems contribute to over 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet there is no comprehensive pathway – comprising a series of targets and timelines – to reduce these emissions to net zero while meeting goals on nature, health and nutrition. Research has shown that reducing emissions from the global food system is necessary to keep warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.
The International Energy Agency’s 1.5°C roadmap for the energy sector has provided clear targets and timetables for energy transition, spurring higher ambition, better-informed implementation and accountability. For example, the IEA roadmap, which limits warming to 1.5°C, reiterates that “declines in demand are sufficiently steep that no new long lead-time conventional oil and gas projects are required, and no new coalmines or coal mine lifetime extensions,” providing a technical basis for countries to strengthen calls for a fossil-fuel phase-out. The roadmap quantifies this as 75% less investment in fossil fuels through 2035.
Updates to the roadmap since the initial version have also lowered projections for fossil gas demand. Developing a similar approach for food system transformation based on quantitative analysis of emissions reductions needed would help provide a framework for global action.
However, the food and agriculture systems are deeply intertwined with other sectors, resulting in impacts on biodiversity, human health and nutrition, global trade, and economic and social frameworks that need to be considered. In particular, food systems are highly dependent on healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, for example, for pollination of plants, regulating the water and maintaining soil health.
A useful global pathway for the food system must therefore consider and meet goals in multiple areas encompassing climate, nature, health and socioeconomic impacts in a way that balances competing needs.
At COP28, 160 countries endorsed the UAE declaration on sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems, and climate action, and called for the inclusion of agriculture and food systems into national climate plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and other strategies before the convening of COP30. Assessing the success of these inclusions will require a global set of indicators to measure them against.
Existing pathways fall short
Existing attempts to develop a comprehensive pathway for the food sector have so far been insufficient. Notably, the FAO released its roadmap to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 without breaching the 1.5°C threshold at COP28 in 2023. The plan incorporates many key targets and indicators, but falls short of outlining a holistic and transparent approach. This is due to its omission of the need to reduce production and consumption of animal-sourced products, promotion of global agricultural intensification and lack of key nature and biodiversity targets.
Additionally, existing studies fail to consider the complexity of the agrifood system and often only assess trade-offs across a few areas rather than integrating all areas at once. A 2025 review found only seven food system studies (of the 36 assessed) covered environmental, economic and societal sustainability. The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems is highlighted as one global-level study that incorporates environmental and societal dimensions of sustainability, but falls short on the economic dimension by not focusing on affordability. It models the implementation of a healthy reference diet, with significantly lower consumption of meat and dairy in most regions, that enables us to remain within the safe operating range of six key Earth system processes from the planetary boundaries framework.
Relevant targets exist across disconnected policies and literature
While no existing pathway comprehensively encompasses all areas of the food system, there are already many targets. A review of targets suggests that there are, at a conservative estimate, over 55 relevant to sustainable food systems, encompassing environmental, social, health, economic and other sustainability metrics.
The majority of these are from globally agreed-upon frameworks, such as the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
Fig. 1: Relevant targets exist, but lack cohesion
Most currently agreed targets include a timeline for meeting goals (the majority for 2030, 2050 or 2100) and are quantified via different indicators. Some goals are only partly quantifiable or not quantifiable at all, which poses challenges in tracking their progress. There are also overlaps between the different indicators, particularly across the SDGs and GBF.
Compliance with these targets is not legally binding or enforceable. However, some targets fall under legally binding agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, where certain actions are required. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit increasingly ambitious climate action plans – NDCs – every five years, with the next set of updated plans to be submitted by the end of 2025. Already, countries have been submitting more ambitious NDCs, which are slowly shrinking the emissions gap required to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C degrees. Although legal imperatives are useful to enforce change, the majority of international agreements – for climate and other issues – are not legally binding. Meanwhile, other models of generating collective action have also had success, such as the IEA Net Zero Roadmap mentioned above, the C40 Cities group of 97 cities driving climate action, and the Powering Past Coal Alliance, whose government and corporate members are committed to phasing out coal.
Outside of global policy or diplomatic frameworks, other targets come from recommendations in academic literature, mainly the EAT-Lancet Commission and the Planetary Boundaries framework, and have not been formally agreed upon by national governments. These include goals encompassing more controversial areas, such as reducing the production and consumption of animal products. Despite there being no globally agreed target, 92% of experts “agree that reducing emissions from the livestock sector is important to limiting temperatures to a maximum of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Despite the wide range of existing targets, there remain other areas that need to be further developed or where targets are missing altogether. For example, indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) are in the process of being further defined, from the 490 currently proposed, which span food and agricultural production among other areas. Doing so will also help countries develop their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) – which 71 countries have submitted.1As of 1 April 2025, 62 developing countries and 9 developed countries have submitted NAPs.
Crucially, there are no globally agreed-upon financial targets to help mobilise the necessary resources to support sustainable food system initiatives worldwide, though there is appetite from the private finance sector to invest in this transformation.
Agrifood systems are hugely underfunded, posing challenges to implementing change. The Climate Policy Institute suggests USD 1.1 trillion is required annually to align agrifood systems with climate and development targets. A 2023 report from the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative indicates a funding gap of up to USD 350 billion per year by 2030 for such transformations.
Already, the agricultural sector accounts for an average of 26% of total damage and losses from climate-related disasters. At the same time, protecting nature can help build resilience and reduce damages caused by climate impacts on food and agricultural systems, while also providing mitigation benefits, for example, via agroforestry practices and planting of cover crops.
Though not on track, targets have spurred key policies
Even with targets in place, implementation is lagging. Though more NDCs now include agrifood systems, less than half of agrifood system emissions are being targeted by concrete mitigation actions in NDCs, pointing to a significant implementation gap. Only a few indicators under SDG 2 to end hunger have been met or are on track to be met, including increasing cereal yield and decreasing the mortality rate of newborns and children under five. At the same time, overall hunger levels have risen in the last five years.
However, the introduction of these goals, particularly the SDGs, has spurred the implementation of stronger policies on food systems, resulting in tangible improvements in some countries.
For example, the 2015-2035 Agriculture Development Strategy of Nepal was informed by the SDGs and has contributed to almost doubling agricultural land productivity and decreasing stunting in children from 41.5% to 31.5% between 2010 and 2020.
In Brazil, the SDGs are cited in the renewal of national programmes that target poverty and hunger. Between 2022 and 2023, severe food insecurity in Brazil dropped by 85% and the country is set to leave the UN Hunger Map (for the second time) in 2025. This was partly attributed to the reintroduction of the Bolsa Família Program in 2023, providing conditional cash transfers to low-income families linked to health and education outcomes.
Additionally, the Paris Agreement has been the catalyst for the introduction and implementation of climate laws requiring action on climate change. Since 2015, when the Agreement was adopted, there have been 586 laws enacted or updated around the world, and all 193 signatories to the Paris Agreement have at least one law addressing climate change or the transition to a low-carbon economy. For example, the UK’s Climate Change Act was revised in 2019 to align with net-zero emissions by 2050, in recognition of the Paris Agreement. The UK’s emissions have now fallen 54% below 1990 levels, and in 2024 the country closed its last coal-fired power station.
Integrating these targets into a pathway for the food sector
While global targets on key areas exist and are important in informing policy at the national level, the lack of a comprehensive framework has resulted in a confusing landscape that includes omissions, overlaps and unquantifiable objectives. Importantly, targets on reducing the production and consumption of animal products are missing from global frameworks, while targets on adaptation and resilience require further development.
A coordinated effort is required to turn this mix of targets into a coherent pathway that is clearly defined and actionable for countries and investors. This involves having globally agreed-upon targets for key areas that are currently absent and integrating these in a way that ensures no goal is compromised.
Fig. 2: Agreed and academic targets make it possible to achieve a global net-zero agrifood system
Comprehensive pathways that ensure no goal is compromised will also likely highlight issues with technological approaches that offer a solution to one element of the agrifood nexus but don’t prioritise long-term, system-wide sustainability. For example, agricultural intensification via the adoption of high-yielding crop varieties or novel feed additives may promise efficiency gains in the short term, but can also have negative impacts, such as elevated pollution levels and biodiversity impacts in other parts of the system.
Using the existing agreed-upon targets from global treaties and frameworks, as well as targets from academic literature, can provide a strong basis for countries to act. Ultimately, developing a strong agrifood pathway – in a similar format to the IEA Roadmap – for reaching cross-cutting goals on climate, biodiversity and health sectors requires integrating a wide range of goals and targets using the latest available data and modelling to avoid negative impacts and trade-offs.
