Water Resilient Food Systems: an essential climate action pathway

The consequences of a more unpredictable and riskier water cycle detailed in the IPCC AR6 report, demands urgent action if we are to meet future food and water needs. While resilient food systems and sustainable healthy diets for all call for much larger water use, these resources are limited and needed for other vital functions. Water use in food systems needs to be brought within the limits of planetary boundaries and reflect the “new normal” hydrological conditions.

If innovations are harnessed and systems carefully managed, transformations in food-water practices and policies can bring climate mitigation and adaptation, and a social and environmental space that considers water and food needs of people alongside that of the ecosystems that provision them.

Achieving transformations of water resilient food systems will require a compact between national and local government, communities and the private sector that bring together bundled solutions that integrate technology, data services, enhanced governance and policy.

This COP26 session in the Water Pavilion brings together policy and law makers, farmers and water professionals, financiers, insurers and donors, implementers and researchers from across water and food systems who are tackling challenges of the climate and biodiversity crises. The opening framing highlights the challenges faced by ministers and law makers in Costa Rica and small island states such as Hawaii. The Riverside Chat then explores these issues in more detail drawing on experience of leaders from different settings from across the world. In the final part of the session there is be a call to action followed by a focus on solutions that can be used to help build resilience in food and water systems.