COP-29 Wrapped: A Turning Point for Climate Finance and Food Systems

This year’s COP marked a pivotal moment in our global fight against climate change. Dubbed the “Climate Finance COP,” it was the first gathering since the Paris Agreement in 2015 that we officially transgressed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold that marked a red line for humanity. This year, significant financial commitments were announced to advance the climate agenda. Yet, there is one area where we are backsliding: food systems.

Food production contributes one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it has received a mere 2.5% of climate finance in recent years — concerningly down from 3% in previous years, according to a new report from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. We need to stop cutting climate financing for food systems if we want to reduce emissions while building a more sustainable and nourishing food supply. This will mean supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture with its focus on restoring soil health, building climate resilience, sequestering GHGs, and advancing farmer well-being. Without this transition, our food system will prevent us from maintaining a 1.5 degrees warmer world, even if all other climate actions in every other sector — energy, the built environment, transportation, etc. — are taken.

Yet despite an increase in awareness about the importance of regenerative/agroecological/climate resilient agriculture, current financial systems are underdeveloped and insufficient to support the scale of transition required.

We must do three things to turn the tide: learn from past innovations, incentivize and de-risk the transition to regenerative, and establish proof-points that illustrate the economic and environmental benefits.

At The Rockefeller Foundation, innovation has always been a cornerstone of our approach to addressing humanity’s greatest challenges. In the mid-2000s, we helped lay the foundation for the field of impact investing, convening visionaries at our Bellagio Center to define a new way of mobilizing profit-seeking capital to achieve social and environmental good. These efforts culminated in the creation of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), a platform for impact investors to come together and develop a shared vision for the industry.

We must now channel that same spirit of innovation toward food systems. Financial mechanisms that reward farmers for adopting regenerative practices — such as preferential loan rates for implementing regenerative practices like cover cropping — are not just possible but necessary. These mechanisms can incentivize behaviors that repair the environment, mitigate climate risks, and improve livelihoods.

While innovation is essential, we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel to increase investments in the regenerative transition. We can rewire existing financing instruments to favor agricultural production that delivers benefits from nature, climate and people which will get us quite far. Our recent report, Financing for Regenerative Agriculture, highlights promising early-stage initiatives that are paving the way for regenerative practices to attract progressive commercial capital.

For example, preferential financing for regenerative farmers demonstrates how we can shift risk-return profiles to make sustainable practices more attractive to private, public, and commercial investors. A great example of this was just announced by EDF and CoBank. But this transition requires collective action. We must develop comprehensive risk assessment frameworks and financing models that fully account for the ecological, social, and financial benefits of regenerative agriculture.

COP28 saw the entrance of the Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes and the formulation of the first theory of change on investing in the regenerative transition which was built by 30+ philanthropies in the Regenerative and Agroecological Financing of the Transition (RAFT) Consortium. This shared theory of change is crucial if philanthropies are to play their part to get to 10x today’s $44 billion put toward the regenerative transition against the estimated $440 billion a year each year for a decade required. But beyond more capital, the characteristic of philanthropic funding needs to become deeper, grounded, flexible and more catalytic (described below).

At The Rockefeller Foundation, we are committed to learning from partners and working together to advance the field. This work requires cross-sectoral collaboration and a collective commitment to reimagine the financial systems that shape our world.

As we look ahead, we urge global leaders and stakeholders to prioritize food systems in the climate agenda. Together, we can ensure a more resilient, abundant, and secure future — for our planet and for generations to come.

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