What Food Systems Can Teach Us About Climate Justice

Article by Bronwyn Hall McLoughlin, Climate Reality Leader, Ireland

Just weeks after Mary Robinson joined Al Gore during London Climate Action Week, she returned to Ireland for the Mary Robinson Climate and Nature Conference in Ballina, Co. Mayo. Ireland’s former President and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Robinson has long been one of the world’s leading advocates for climate justice.

The conference theme was Food and Care: A Meitheal for Our Time. A meitheal is an Irish tradition of people coming together to share work and support one another. The conference applied that idea to the interconnected challenges of climate, biodiversity, agriculture, community resilience, food security and climate justice.

Earlier this year, at ChangeNOW in Paris, we explored climate justice through a city lens. Who can access affordable renewable energy? Who benefits from cleaner transport or greener neighbourhoods? Who faces the greatest risks from heat, flooding or poor housing? And whose needs and experiences are missing when decisions are made?

At this conference, our workshop applied the same climate justice lens to food systems. The questions remained the same: Who benefits? Who is impacted? Who may be left behind?

A just transition asks how both climate impacts and climate action affect people within our own communities.

Across Europe, many countries are recognised for the high quality of their food - in Ireland, our meat and dairy produce is considered some of the world’s best. Food systems account for more than a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, so climate conversations often centre on beef, dairy and the future of farming. Ireland imports more than 80% of its food through global food systems – even ~40% of our most iconic crop, the humble potato, is imported. The food on our plates connects us to farmers, workers, ecosystems and supply chains across the world. It also leaves us exposed to climate disruption, conflict, trade instability and rising food prices.

During our workshop, Serving Justice: Seeding Action in Food Systems, participants explored some of these connections using our Seed Packs focused on familiar foods, including soy, wheat, chocolate, coffee, rice and potatoes.

Each food revealed a different climate justice challenge.

• Chocolate and coffee connect consumers with producers facing low incomes, unequal power within supply chains, and increasingly difficult growing conditions due to climate change.

• Soy is increasingly recognised as an important plant-based food and biofuel. Yet around 80% of global production is used to feed livestock – raising questions about land use, deforestation, trade-offs and who benefits from the way the crop is used.

• Wheat. Extreme weather, conflict, trade disruption and seed ownership has consequences for both producers and households, affecting both our ability to respond to climate change, and impacting food availability and prices.

• Rice is both a staple food for billions of people yet produces around 8% of all human-caused methane emissions, creating complex questions about food security, livelihoods and climate action.

• Potatoes, despite their place in Irish identity, remind us that even familiar foods are connected to international seed, fertiliser, energy and distribution systems.

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From the left: Participants of the "Serving Justice" workshop | Bronwyn facilitating the workshop | Deidre before the workshop

These are not simply stories about consumer choice. They involve farmers and workers, food companies, retailers, investors, governments, transport networks and communities. They involve decisions about land, labour, water, trade, nutrition and profit. Within those systems, people have very different levels of power and experience very different levels of climate risk.

Mary Robinson captured this clearly in her opening address:

“Every meal is the culmination of a chain.”

That chain can stretch across countries and continents, but it can also reveal impacts much closer to home. A failed harvest due to climate events can affect both farming livelihoods as well as household food accessibility and budgets. Our well-intentioned demands for more sustainable production, while still expecting lower prices, can place additional financial pressure on farmers and workers. Climate action can create new opportunities, but it can also deepen existing inequalities when those most affected have little voice or insufficient support to adapt.

We can begin with the food on our plate and ask: Where did it come from? Who produced it? How is climate change affecting them? Who holds power within that system? And who may be left behind as it changes?

Food makes these connections visible. It gives us a practical way to explore what climate justice looks like in everyday life.

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Acknowledgements: My thanks to Climate Reality Europe’s Program and Engagement Manager, Jessica Besch and Climate Reality Leader, Deirdre Lane for collaborating on the development and delivery of this workshop. Congratulations also to the team and volunteers at The Mary Robinson Centre for delivering such an inspiring conference.

Get involved: If you would like to join the next cohort of Climate Justice training, please register via this link or if you would like to request a Climate Justice workshop, please contact europe@climatereality.com.