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	Equitable Land Rights for a just, sustainable, and peaceful future by International Land Coalition, IPES-Food, agencies Colombia,   July 2025   10th Global Land Forum: Bogota Declaration: Equitable Land Rights for Peace.   We, members of the International Land Coalition (ILC) — a global alliance of 323 organisations from 97 countries — gathered in Bogota, Colombia for the 10th Global Land Forum (GLF).   As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of ILC, we also celebrate our collective solidarity and concrete achievements towards people-centred land governance. In the last decade, we are proud to have helped secure the land rights of over 4.7 million women and men, over 45 million hectares, and contributed to many policy and legal reforms.   We thank the government and people of Colombia for their warm welcome. Colombia’s decision to prioritise land reform as a core peacebuilding commitment, in partnership with people’s organisations, gives us hope. We commend its strong commitment to redistributive land reform, especially in today’s fragmented and uncertain global context.   The people who live on and from the land – women, youth, smallholder and family farmers, peasants, fisherfolk, forest-dwellers, pastoralists, Afro-descendants and Indigenous Peoples – are at the forefront of defending land, feeding communities, and stewarding nature — yet they face discrimination, land grabbing, dispossession, violence, criminalization, and pressure from governments and the private sector.   We commit to protecting land and environmental defenders, placing peoples’ leadership at the centre of our work and ensuring equal land rights, especially those of women and girls, and access to resources and participation. We endorse the Indigenous Peoples, Youth, and Afro-descendant Peoples Declarations of this Forum.   We face a world shaped by interlinked crises: inequality, land concentration, biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation, conflict, polarisation, food insecurity, lack of food sovereignty, and threats to human rights and democracy. These are driven by systems hat prioritise profit and power over people and planet — harming those who live on and from the land, more than 100 million of whom are represented by our members.   Our experience shows that equitable land distribution, agrarian reform, and secure tenure are essential to just and sustainable transitions. We stand in solidarity to advance people-centred land governance as a solution to the challenges we — and future generations — collectively share.   We appreciate the progress made within the Rio Conventions in recognising secure land tenure and embracing community-based data as essential to achieving global goals on land degradation neutrality, biodiversity protection, and climate action. We welcome this momentum and urge stronger, coordinated action at the UNFCCC COP 30 to advance people-centred land governance as a foundation of environmental justice.   We call on governments and intergovernmental organisations to prioritise land tenure, particularly for those who live on and from the land, as a core strategy for fulfilling climate and biodiversity commitments. Responsible and people-centred land governance must be recognised as a core aspect of climate action.   The urgent transitions in both energy and food systems must respect and strengthen human rights, land tenure, sustainable farming practices, such as agroecology, food sovereignty, food security and nutrition, recognizing the role of peasants, smallholder and family farmers as food producers. We are deeply concerned by land grabs and violations affecting those living on and from the land, often driven by poorly governed energy, mining and agricultural investments. These transitions must be just, equitable, and people-centred — grounded in their leadership, consent, and participation.   Communities must have the power and autonomy to decide if, and under what terms, energy and agriculture projects take place on their lands and territories. We call on governments, investors, and companies to respect self-determination, where applicable, uphold Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and the customary rights of Indigenous Peoples, ensuring respect for international and national commitments and laws, transparency, environmental protection, benefit-sharing and the full participation of affected communities in all phases.   Globally, investments in democracy and human rights, peacebuilding, and sustainable development are shrinking. This decline deepens inequality, poverty, hunger, fuels conflict, and undermines the foundations of long-term peace.   We call on donors, international financial institutions, and governments to rebalance priorities — directing resources toward women, youth, and community-led, rights-based, just and equitable development efforts, including towards more people-centred governance, and in particular to agrarian reform, climate action, and the transformation of our food systems, especially through agroecology.   We call on governments to renew the 2021 Forest Tenure Pledge at COP 30 with stronger financial, political and territorial commitments, through direct financing, to recognise and secure the tenure of those who live on and from the land across all ecosystems, including rangelands.   The concentration of land and economic wealth lies at the heart of deep-rooted structural injustice and conflict, driving inequalities and ecological damage. Redistributive land reform is not only a tool for economic equity, but a fundamental requirement for reconciliation and peace, particularly in post-conflict societies.   We call upon governments to adopt and implement peace accords, treaties, agreements, court rulings, and other constructive arrangements to be signed with Indigenous Peoples, and other communities for resolving land problems to establise lasting peace.   We call on governments and intergovernmental organisations to support inclusive and just agrarian reform processes, recognising land as both a human right and a collective good. There can be no sustainable peace or collective flourishing without secure land and social and environmental justice. This includes action for gender justice, tackling discrimination and violence wherever it occurs.   We express our solidarity with members of ILC and communities facing occupation, displacement, and land-related violence across the globe, especially in Palestine, where land and life are under siege. We stand against the expropriation of land and reaffirm our commitment to peace built on justice, dignity, and human rights.   We stand with all people on the move — internally displaced persons, refugees, and returnees — uprooted by conflict and denied of their land rights. We highlight ongoing crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, the Philippines, and beyond, where land rights violations are both a cause and consequence of violence. Justice, recognition, and rights restoration must be central to lasting solutions.   http://www.landcoalition.org/en/latest/global-land-forum-concludes-with-bogota-declaration http://www.landcoalition.org/en/latest/global-agenda-youth-for-land/ http://www.landcoalition.org/en/latest/3-reasons-why-womens-land-rights-are-critical/ http://stand4herland.org/ http://www.iied.org/women-land-rights-defenders-connect-across-continents http://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-and-environmental-defenders/missing-voices/   June 2025   What will it take to get fossil fuels out of our food systems? (IPES-Food)   A major new report from international experts at IPES-Food reveals the alarming extent to which fossil fuels are flooding into food systems – turning food into the new growth frontier for Big Oil. Yet food remains sidelined from national climate pledges and international negotiations, say the authors.   The report, ‘Fuel To Fork: What will it take to get fossil fuels out of our food systems?’ finds that 40% of all global petrochemicals are now consumed by food systems – mainly through synthetic fertilizers and plastic packaging.   With petrochemicals the single largest driver of oil demand growth, food systems are now fuelling fossil fuel expansion, even as other sectors begin to decarbonize.   The findings come amid intense geopolitical instability in the Middle East and volatile oil prices. The experts warn that – with food and energy prices deeply intertwined – food and fertilizer prices could soon be affected, putting millions at risk of hunger.   Fossil fuel dependence is driving food insecurity, the authors say, making the need to delink food from fossil fuels ever more urgent.   The report details how fossil fuels are embedded across every stage of the food chain – from fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics to ultra processed foods, plastic packaging, and cold storage – supported by generous subsidies for fossil fuels and chemical-intensive agriculture.   Among the Key findings:   99% of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides are derived from fossil fuels. One-third of petrochemicals go toward producing synthetic fertilizers – the biggest fossil fuel consumer in agriculture. Food and drink packaging accounts for at least 10% of global plastic use – with a further 3.5% used in agriculture.   Industry-led ‘solutions’ like ‘blue’ ammonia fertilizers and digital agriculture are costly, energy-intensive, and environmentally risky – while entrenching fossil fuel dependence and corporate control.   The authors warn that tackling climate change is impossible without cutting fossil fuels out of food systems – and that real solutions already exist. They urge governments to seize the opportunity at COP30 in Brazil to phase out fossil fuel and agrochemical subsidies, and shift food and farming toward agroecology, shorter supply chains, and resilient local food systems.   http://ipes-food.org/volatile-oil-prices-expose-food-systems-dangerous-fossil-fuel-dependence-experts/ http://ipes-food.org/report/fuel-to-fork/ http://ipes-food.org/fuel-to-fork/ http://ipes-food.org/the-biofuel-sham-could-worsen-global-hunger-and-inequality   http://www.fian.org/en/global-land-grab-highlights-growing-inequality-and-need-for-reform/ http://grain.org/en/article/7284-top-10-agribusiness-giants-corporate-concentration-in-food-farming-in-2025 http://grain.org/en/category/545-supermarket-watch   July 2025   Little recognition on how unequal power relations, the dominance of corporate actors impact food outcomes and respect for human rights at the UN Food Systems Summit stocktake, by Jody Harris for the Institute of Development Studies   Fifteen years ago, a titan of the nutrition world Urban Jonsson, wrote a seminal paper in which he reflected on the two grand narratives that have shaped food and nutrition discourse and action over recent decades: the rights-based paradigm and the investment paradigm.   Back then, he reflected that while rights and investment are not mutually exclusive – business can be rights-based, and certain investments are needed to achieve the policies and actions needed to secure a right to food – the investment paradigm was starting to dominate to the exclusion of rights.   Both human rights and investment financing were invoked at the UNFSS+4, though you would have had to look harder for the rights rhetoric, which appeared in high-level speeches (and had its own section in the Report of the Secretary-General for the Summit), than for the investment focus, which had its own programme track and featured in many session titles. Fifteen years on from Urban Jonsson’s original reflections, what does the UNFSS process tell us about how these two world-shaping discourses are playing out?   Show me the money   ‘Unlocking investment’ was one of the three core objectives of the Summit, and was evident in investment tracks, SME pitching events, and the economic arguments for action delivered from the plenary floor. Of the nearly 3,000 Summit delegates convened at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, 300 were classed as ‘business leaders’ by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Financing came up repeatedly, from green bonds to blended finance to debt swaps, with a new compendium of 15 co-investment models suggesting ways that business can be even more involved in changing food systems.   We know already, however, that corporate concentration in multiple aspects of food systems is part of the problem driving inequitable outcomes, and representatives of many of these corporations were active at the Summit.   While there was a clear focus on small and medium enterprises in aspects of the event, there was no clear attempt to differentiate the implications of a small dried-fruit cooperative from the actions of a powerful food multinational: as in previous years, no recognition was made of how power relations affect participation in practice, and no red lines were drawn around which investors could participate and how.   UNFSS has amazing convening power (I brushed past presidents, ambassadors, farmers, women’ groups leaders, and CEOs in the hallways). Perhaps this is because of its focus on investment in a topic – food – that is either struggling for funds in multilateral and civil society spaces, or is seen as a smart business move by the private sector. Because of this convening power, it is also a promising space to engage businesses to step up to their human rights and social welfare responsibilities – but on this, the UNFSS could do so much better.   Rights and responsibilities   Advancing “inclusive, rights-based collaboration and mutual accountability” featured in another core objective of the UNFSS+4: ‘strengthening partnerships and tracking commitments’. Accountability is a key principle of a rights-based approach, one that was called out in a paper by the IPES-Food group that coincided with the Summit as sorely lacking in the process.   The Summit and related private sector initiatives have edged forward on food system accountability in response to sustained critique. Action 55c, part of the 2024 Pact for the Future, focuses on delivering existing commitments related to the private sector, and “encourages” private sector accountability. The International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, earlier in 2025, pledged to be transparent and have clear monitoring and accountability mechanisms in the future. And the introduction of the Corporate Accountability Roadmap was the centrepiece of UNFSS-specific action on accountability.   Despite these actions, civil society groups contend that the UNFSS continues to rely on voluntary commitments and incentives, thereby discouraging stronger mechanisms with a chance of enforcement. Essential elements of accountability – standards, data, answerability, sanction, and remedy – have already been laid out for global health initiatives, and not all of these elements are considered in the UNFSS framing of accountability.   Guiding principles on business and human rights already exist, based in the state duty to protect and corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and these could have guided the UNFSS accountability processes, getting food companies ready for the proposed binding treaty on business and human rights.   Seeing little meaningful progress on accountability since the original Summit in 2021, however, UNFSS+4 was boycotted by much of civil society for legitimizing corporate control of food systems without proper attention to human rights.   That boycott meant that many civil society actors could not attend the two sessions at the Summit that directly addressed accountability issues. The accountability through science session looked at the data, science and knowledge platforms that are available for monitoring. A key platform is the Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI); although this initiative has been critiqued for focusing too much on the positive actions of corporations and not considering negative actions such as tax avoidance and lobbying against regulation.   In the corporate accountability session, it was acknowledged that the nutrition, health and social implications of business actions are not top of the agenda in crowded board meetings, so accountability regulations need to be mandatory (not voluntary) to be taken seriously – and for the UNFSS, compliance should then be demonstrated as a precondition for participation.   Overall, the feeling in the room was that enough evidence, data and guidelines exist for meaningful action; there is no need to wait for the perfect gold accountability standard, and the issue is urgent.   But looking around the room, I was not sure that the same 300 business leaders who filled the plenary hall, or the SME representatives who were pitching their business plans at the Summit, were also present in the accountability sessions. Delegates at UNFSS+4 were confronted with a multiplicity of sessions to attend, and chose according to their interests, which meant often talking in echo chambers – another reason why accountability processes must be mandatory rather than voluntary.   Moving forward on accountability and rights   The third and final UNFSS+4 objective was ‘taking stock’. In a world where inequalities in food system outcomes are growing, according to the SOFI 2025 report launched at UNFSS+4, and man-made famines are allowed and enabled despite daily media coverage, there is an argument to be made that all hands are needed on deck. But I’ve written before about the dangers of ‘strategic ambiguity’ in action on food and nutrition – where “conceptual ambiguity generates a false sense that we are all pulling together in one common, unproblematic endeavour”.   So if private sector investment, corporate funding, and economic pathways are to be part of the food system solution, this can only happen ethically with the strongest forms of regulation, transparency and accountability in place.   This must be a red line for corporate involvement in food system actions in a multilateral space such as a United Nations summit, as previous work on conflict of interest in conference organisation has elaborated. The UN is predicated on respect for human rights, after all.   Seen through the principle of accountability, the UNFSS is racing ahead with the investment paradigm without equally meaningful work on rights. Guidelines already exist on human rights and business, and on accountability processes and principles for engagement with the private sector, largely produced by existing UN bodies such as the CFS and Human Rights Council.   Only universal recognition that these are a vital underpinning of ethical food system transformation will give them teeth – and the UNFSS has the reach and the voice to make this happen if it chooses to do so.   * Jody Harris is co-Director of the Food Equity Centre at the Institute of Development Studies. She is currently Adjunct Professor of Food Equity at Mahidol University, Thailand, and was a member of the High-Level Panel of Experts for Food Security for the UN Committee on World Food Security.   http://www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/accountability-remains-a-missing-link-for-unfss-legitimacy/ http://reliefweb.int/report/world/un-food-systems-summit-4-legitimizes-corporate-control-and-turns-blind-eye-geopolitical-food-and-hunger-crises http://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-025-01217-9 Visit the related web page
	Accelerate a just transition globally, invest in Renewable Energy by United Nations News, agencies   July 2025   UN Secretary‑General António Guterres declared the world has “passed the point of no return” on the shift to renewables and implored governments to file sweeping new climate plans before November’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil, saying the fossil fuel era is nearing its end.   In a special address at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Guterres cited surging clean energy investment and plunging solar and wind costs that now outcompete fossil fuels.   “The energy transition is unstoppable, but the transition is not yet fast enough or fair enough,” he said. “Just follow the money,” Mr. Guterres said, noting that $2 trillion flowed into clean energy last year, $800 billion more than fossil fuels and up almost 70 per cent in a decade.   He noted new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) showing solar, once four times costlier, is now 41 per cent cheaper than fossil fuels.   Similarly, offshore wind is 53 per cent cheaper, with more than 90 per cent of new renewables worldwide beating the cheapest new fossil alternative.   “This is not just a shift in power. It is a shift in possibility,” he said.   Renewables nearly match fossil fuels in global installed power capacity, and “almost all the new power capacity built” last year came from renewables, he said, noting that every continent added more clean power than fossil fuels.   Mr. Guterres underscored that a clean energy future “is no longer a promise, it is a fact”. No government, no industry and no special interest can stop it.   “Of course, the fossil fuel lobby will try, and we know the lengths to which they will go. But they will fail because we have passed the point of no return.”   He urged countries to lock ambition into the next round of national climate plans, or NDCs, due within months. Mr. Guterres called on the G20 countries, which are responsible for 80 per cent of emissions, to submit new plans aligned with the 1.5°C limit and present them at a high‑level event in September.   Targets, he added, must “double energy efficiency and triple renewables capacity by 2030” while accelerating “the transition away from fossil fuels”.   The Secretary-General also highlighted the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel dependence. “The greatest threat to energy security today is fossil fuels,” he said, citing price shocks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.   “There are no price spikes for sunlight, no embargoes on wind. Renewables mean real energy security, real energy sovereignty and real freedom from fossil-fuel volatility.”   Mr. Guterres mapped six “opportunity areas” to speed the transition: ambitious NDCs, modern grids and storage, meeting soaring demand sustainably, a just transition for workers and communities, trade reforms to broaden clean‑tech supply chains, and mobilising finance to emerging markets.   Financing, however, is the choke point. Africa, home to 60 per cent of the world’s best solar resources, received just 2 per cent of global clean energy investment last year, he said.   Only one in five clean energy dollars over the past decade went to emerging and developing economies outside China. Flows must rise more than five-fold by 2030 to keep the 1.5-degree limit alive and deliver universal access.   Mr. Guterres urged reform of global finance, stronger multilateral development banks and debt relief, including debt‑for‑climate swaps.   “The fossil fuel age is flailing and failing. We are in the dawn of a new energy era,” he said in closing. “That world is within reach, but it won’t happen on its own. Not fast enough. Not fair enough. It is up to us. This is our moment of opportunity.”   http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165460 http://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2025-07-22/secretary-generals-remarks-climate-action-moment-of-opportunity-supercharging-the-clean-energy-age-delivered-scroll-down-for-all-french http://www.un.org/en/climatechange/moment-opportunity-2025 http://www.irena.org/Publications/2025/Jun/Renewable-Power-Generation-Costs-in-2024 http://www.carbonbrief.org/un-five-reasons-why-switching-to-renewables-is-smart-economics http://fossilfueltreaty.org/news http://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-inputs-fossil-fuel-based-economy-and-human-rights   * Global banks have financed $7.9 trillion in fossil fuels since 2016, when the Paris Agreement was signed:   http://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2025/06/new-report-global-bank-financing-fossil-fuels-totals-869b-2024-dramatic http://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2025/06/banking-climate-chaos-global-banks-backslide-climate-commitments-amid-surge-fossil http://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-china-and-india-account-for-87-of-new-coal-power-capacity-so-far-in-2025/ http://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/climate-backtracker Visit the related web page
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