Report from London Climate Action Week – Food Tank

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Greetings from London!

The Food Tank team is here in the UK for London Climate Action Week (LCAW), an event that began in 2019 and has quickly grown into one of the world’s largest independent climate action initiatives.

Since this year’s LCAW launched last weekend, tens of thousands of advocates, researchers, business and finance leaders, policy makers and more have gathered here for hundreds of events and dialogues on how we can mobilize finance and policy support for the transition to a greener climate.

I would like to begin with a striking quote from a discussion on the state of climate policy that took place earlier this week.

“There is no going back to a world before extreme weather events,” said Jennifer Morgan, State Secretary and Special Envoy of the German Federal Government for International Climate Protection. “There is no option to press pause. But we have the skills to create a better, more resilient future.”

Climate discussions are particularly urgent this week as heatwaves swept the globe, breaking more than 1,400 temperature records from Greece to India to the Middle East. For around 80 percent of the world’s population, last week’s high temperatures are about twice as likely to be caused by human-caused emissions and environmental damage.

And because food and agricultural systems are responsible for about a third of total greenhouse gas emissions – not to mention the other ecological problems that can result from hyper-industrialized and non-regenerative practices – food activists must play a critical role in both taking responsibility and developing solutions.

“You can’t solve climate change if you don’t get the food system under control,” said Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, at a London Climate Action Week event a few days ago. “If you as a government don’t look at food holistically in your overall strategy, you can’t solve the problem.”

So far, we have seen some promising developments during London Climate Action Week.

Building coordination of research and data remains a top priority. A new coalition called Mission 2025 has been formed by various companies, financial institutions and city and regional politicians to increase their climate ambition before they are required to submit their emissions reduction plans to the UN in February 2025. The coalition – convened by Groundswell along with Global Optimism, Systems Change Lab and the Bezos Earth Fund, with support from companies such as Ikea and Unilever – is primarily designed to help provide data to justify policy changes in the world’s 20 largest economies.

And the new Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College London, together with a recently announced partner centre at North Carolina State University, will help research solutions to make food ecosystems more sustainable.

Securing financial support to drive climate action is once again a key thread we see at LCAW this year. Throughout the week, the Earthshot Prize – a funding initiative launched by Prince William in 2020 – is hosting a series of events to connect innovators and problem-solvers with influential funders and investors. And yesterday, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) organisation announced more participants in a new project that will match companies with committed investors representing over $15 trillion in assets, with contributions tied to actions to protect biodiversity and supply chains.

And as a new, first-of-its-kind analysis on green jobs released during LCAW shows, climate action at the city level has enormous positive economic and social impacts. In the 74 cities studied, from Accra to Vancouver, the transition to a greener economy is already helping to secure nearly 16 million jobs and has the potential to create countless additional employment opportunities.

When it comes to driving or blocking climate action in the future, I believe we will see an important role for the legal system. At today’s LCAW conference, the Grantham Research Institute will release its Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation Policy Report 2024, and I am excited to see how civil society and other stakeholders will continue to use litigation to compel governments and companies to comply with climate regulations. (We are also seeing companies and interest groups using legal means to to stop Climate advances that are worrying.)

In just a few weeks, voters in the UK will be heading to the polls, the first election since the country left the European Union. Much has changed since then, of course, but it remains true that concern for the wellbeing of people and the planet should not be a politically divisive issue!

“The need for political leadership is critical” to drive food system and climate change transformation, said Anna Taylor, executive director of the nonprofit Food Foundation, during a recent LCAW event. She called on the new administration to “boldly set the direction to align the interests of business, the public sector and citizens.”

Jesper Hornberg, CEO of the Global Resilience Partnership, said earlier this week: “We are in a complex, changing system and we need to learn over time to create truly resilient communities.”

Learning from each other and building such bridges – between food, technology, investment and other climate action sectors – is also at the heart of Food Tank’s presence here at London Climate Action Week.

We’re hosting a summit tomorrow, presented by Food Tank, Google Cloud and Nomad Foods in partnership with Compass Group, Oatly and the Sustainable Food Trust, and advised by the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London. If you’re attending this high-level event, you can find out more about what to expect here.

Our incredible lineup of speakers includes: Tim Allen, Spoon Guru; Robert BarkerUniversity of Kent; Jack BoboUniversity of Nottingham; Katrin BurtGrosvenor Food & AgTech; Amy Chappleyouth farmer; Julia CollinsPlanet FWD; Zitouni Ould-DadaFAIRR; The Rt Hon. of Lord Deben; Stefan Descheemaekernomadic food; Richard Dillonivy farm; Neil Fletchernomadic food; Morgan GillespyCoalition for Food and Land Use; Andreas GyrGoogle EMEA; Simon HallGoogle Cloud; Lawrence HaddadGlobal Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN); Sam HamrebtanThe Life Larder, College of Naturopathy; Geoffrey HawtinCrop Trust (winner of the 2024 World Food Prize); Adele JonesSustainable Food Trust; David JacksonWinnow; Gina KennedyAlliance of Bioversity International and CIAT; Asma KhanCelebrity chef and British restaurateur; Sarah Montgomery TaylorGoogle Health; Will NicholsonWRAP; Holly PurdyHorner Farm; Caroline ReidOatmeal; Christian ReynoldsCity, University of London; Abby RoseVidacycle and Farmerama; Dorothy ShaverAmazon; Tim StephensonCompass on Google London; Lady Sharon White; Dharshan WignarajahClimate Policy Initiative; and Romy WilkinJones Food Company.

And just as we did in the first half of 2024, we will continue to travel across the US and the world throughout the rest of the year to participate in and convene these urgent, meaningful conversations. Later this summer, we will be in Washington DC, Knoxville, Tennessee, Des Moines, Iowa, and elsewhere. In September, we will hold several events during NYC Climate Week, which you can learn more about HERE.

I hope you will keep an eye on our social media and FoodTank.com over the next few days – I will keep you updated on further developments from London Climate Action Week.

And as always, I’d love to hear your feedback via email at [email protected]. What developments are you hoping to see here in London or elsewhere this summer? I’m representing the Food Tankers locally here, so let’s talk about how we can help take the conversation to the next level in your communities!

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