(Image: Artem Beliaikin / Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
ASEAN member states can work together to strengthen their national agri-food sectors, building on the outcomes of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The recent COP30 may be seen as a failure by some, especially with respect to fossil fuel and deforestation reduction. However, it did see the elevation of the agri-food sector’s role in climate action, the interdependence of agriculture and forestry for sustainability and resilience, and the importance of empowering family farms and indigenous communities for effective action.
COP30, or the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), was held in Belém, Brazil (10-21 November 2025). COP30 built on the momentum of COP28 and COP29 to highlight the urgency of mitigation and adaptation in the previously overlooked agri-food sector. Even though the sector contributes globally up to one-third of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), it has historically received only 4 per cent of climate-related development finance, far short of the US$1 trillion needed annually to achieve sustainability.
One major accomplishment of COP30, aside from the skeletal climate action plan (the Belem Package) that 195 countries approved, was the launch of financing for mitigation and adaptation in the agri-food sector. This includes financing cropland degradation reversal, agroecology, agroforestry, decarbonisation innovations, knowledge sharing and collaborations (Table 1), which may address impediments of high upfront costs, long payback timelines and volatile returns. These initiatives are of high relevance to several ASEAN member states (AMS).
