News in brief: The FAIRR investment group, comprising 32 investors managing over $70 trillion, urges wealthy nations to align agricultural subsidies with climate and nature goals by 2030. This call marks the group’s global focus and follows their previous efforts in influencing food sector policies for environmental sustainability.
An investment group, under the aegis of the FAIRR initiative, has called on wealthy countries to align agricultural subsidies with their climate and nature goals by the end of the decade, a Reuters report says. The call comes ahead of an upcoming G20 summit in India, by September 2023.
The investment group is made up of 32 investors and they manage over $70 trillion in total assets, according to their website. They raise awareness of the material Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) risks and opportunities caused by intensive animal production.
One of the groupâs high-profile wins was the successful lobbying of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to create a global roadmap for the food sector.
This is the group’s first ever call tackling global subsidies and it is a follow-up on a ‘narrower’ 2021 request to the European Union (EU) about concerns over certain elements of its Taxonomy and reminder of the importance of the agriculture sector.
In 2021, the United Nations (UN) released a report that said of the $540 billion in total annual subsidies to agricultural producers, 87% of them included price distorting measures which could harm nature and human health. To corroborate this, a United Kingdom (UK) government report on the economics of biodiversity stated that subsidies caused between $4 trillion to $6 trillion worth of damages to nature each year.
To preserve biodiversity, a global deal, which includes subsidy reforms, was struck in December 2022 but richer nations appear slow in implementing the resolutions, Helena Wright, Policy Director at the FAIRR Initiative, said.
She stressed that meeting these commitments were in the interests of the world’s climate and nature, and G20 countries needed to lead by example.
Investors have requested that governments link their financial support to the sector with their environmental obligations. This way, it would also include the Paris Agreement on climate change and their pledge to protect biodiversity. They have also made calls to shift focus to sustainable agriculture.
Some of these changes will include removing subsidies from products with high climate-damaging emissions like dairy or red meat, and increasing funding to help workers impacted by the change.
Additionally, head of stewardship for Europe at BNP Paribas Asset Management, Rachel Crossley, said there was need to make a wholesome transformation of the food system. She said it was necessary because itâs one of the most damaging systems of all to the climate and nature.
