EU appears woefully unprepared for COP29

This year's 29th session of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) is supposed to take bold actions to tackle climate change — but our planet and its people are still affected by climate disasters of unprecedented scale.  

The 1.5C threshold that was the stretch target established in the Paris Agreement in 2015, and the Sustainable Development Goals are far from achieved, and the European Union’s struggle to maintain the leadership it has long held in climate negotiations is only making matters worse.

Under these circumstances, it is questionable whether smallholder farmers and small food processors of the countries most affected by the impacts of climate change will still be able to produce enough food for their own regions in the years to come.

Without immediate action, food sovereignty will be unattainable for a growing number of low and middle-income countries, adding a new dependency to an already long list.

Besides, farmers might soon be unable to grow many of the world’s favourite foods and it is fair to wonder if the delegates at COP39 will still be able to enjoy a cup of coffee to survive long nights of negotiations.

While the Council of the European Union has recognised the need to reform the climate finance architecture in its conclusions ahead of COP29, the EU has so far not put any concrete proposals on the table and does not appear to have a clear implementation agenda.

The proposed initiatives under the European Green Deal — which aims to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050 — do not fully acknowledge the connection between market demands in the EU and production practices outside of it.

These measures pose significant challenges to smallholder farmers and food processing SMEs in non-EU countries and risk to cause environmentally and socially harmful impacts there.

A global Green Deal?

In response to the European Green Deal, the Fair Trade Movement together with SOLIDAR has made a bold proposal for a Global Green Deal — a plan for more social and environmental justice in global emissions reduction efforts.

It calls for fairer policies that recognise climate impacts on farmers and proposes a just transition strategy towards compliance with EU requirements, which includes support and long-term finance.

We urge policy makers to consider the following aspects during COP29 and beyond: farming communities need new solutions that can be immediately effective building on practical methods to produce and process more sustainably, something the Fair Trade community has done for decades worldwide.

Fair Trade as a social movement demonstrated its ability to foster regenerative agriculture, sustainable production and consumption patterns, and social and environmental justice.

This has notably been achieved through the vital role of Fair Trade enterprises that prioritise environmentally and socially sound practices over profit maximisation, along with certification programmes like Fairtrade, which support farming communities in addressing a wide range of social and environmental issues. 

In addition to enabling communities to continue producing qualitative food, the EU must also promote food processing and diversification of supply chains in producing countries to retain value locally and build the foundation of a true food sovereignty policy in countries most affected by the climate crisis.

Climate programmes must meet the needs of farming communities. Governments must change how they design climate programmes so that farmers and agricultural workers always have a seat at the table and can shape the programmes according to their communities’ needs. 

Mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage

Climate finance must be more accessible and more ambitious. Mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage must be funded separately.

The gap in adaptation funding must urgently be closed through additional funds, leveraging EU subsidies and other innovative sources.

Climate finance programmes must pay greater attention to the links between mitigation and adaptation and prioritise actions that foster both.

Trade policies must protect human rights and the environment. Governments must implement regulations, incentives, and sanctions that shift power relations in global trade, and give preference to small-scale farming and processing which tackles structural poverty in interconnection with environmental degradation.

The Global Green Deal is strongly aligned with the first pillar of the COP29 presidency, which aims to increase climate ambition in parties' proposals.

Ambassadors from several nations support this idea, which has also been endorsed by members of the European Parliament's Fair Trade Working Group.

In addition, the European Committee of the Regions has called on the EU to defend a similar project of a Global Green Deal in its official COP29 negotiating position.

By placing the concrete proposals of the Global Green Deal at the heart of its official negotiating position at COP29, the EU could lead meaningful climate negotiations. 

World conflicts and geopolitical strains have made it more important than ever to work together to reach joint targets. The EU must use one of the last chances it might get to advocate for solutions that put people and the planet first and leave no one behind – to protect the world’s climate and secure its place as a global leader.