The Role of Soil Security in Achieving Climate, Food, and Development Goals at COP30

A decade since Paris.

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to be held in Belém, Brazil, in 2025, marks a decade since the landmark COP21 in Paris.

The Paris Agreement is a global commitment to limit warming to well below 2°C and strive for 1.5°C.

Over the past decade, the international community has significantly expanded its climate engagement beyond national governments, with agriculture and land-based solutions emerging as critical elements in both mitigation and adaptation.

Key initiatives linking Climate and Agriculture

Several key initiatives have shaped this momentum. The 4 per 1000 Initiative, launched at COP21, promotes increasing global soil carbon stocks by 0.4% annually as a means to enhance food security and mitigate climate change.

At COP22 in Marrakesh, the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA) Initiative was launched to support African countries in strengthening their agricultural resilience.

At COP23, the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) formally integrated agriculture into UNFCCC negotiations, recognising its dual role as both a source of emissions and a platform for adaptation.

Most recently, COP28 in the UAE saw the adoption of the first-ever leaders-level Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action.

The Global Stocktake: A Call for Acceleration

These efforts culminated in the first Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement, concluded at COP28.

The GST is a five-yearly assessment of global progress on climate goals—covering mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation.

It found that the world is not on track to meet the Paris temperature targets and called for urgent acceleration of climate action, particularly in transitioning away from fossil fuels, enhancing climate finance, and transforming food systems.

From Negotiation to Implementation: COP30’s Action Plan

In response, the Brazilian Presidency of COP30 has proposed an ambitious Action Agenda that shifts from negotiation to implementation. At its core is the concept of a “Globally Determined Contribution” (GDC), a collective response to the GST intended to align government and non-governmental efforts around a shared climate compass.

To operationalise the GST outcomes, the Action Agenda is structured around six thematic axes:

1. Transitioning Energy, Industry, and Transport
2. Stewarding Forests, Oceans, and Biodiversity
3. Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems
4. Building Resilience for Cities, Infrastructure, and Water
5. Fostering Human and Social Development
6. Unleashing Cross-Cutting Enablers, such as finance, technology, governance, and innovation

COP30 and Soil Security and Agriculture

Among the six thematic axes of the COP30 Action Agenda, agriculture and food systems stand out as the only explicitly sectoral theme, while others—such as energy, biodiversity, or human development—are framed as broader systemic domains.

This distinction reflects the growing global recognition that agriculture must be fundamentally transformed not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also to strengthen resilience, ensure food security, and address poverty.

The Brazilian COP30 Presidency is advocating for a holistic and equity-based approach to agricultural transformation. This includes restoring degraded land, building more adaptive and sustainable food systems, and ensuring equitable access to adequate food and nutrition.

Agriculture is also expected to benefit from cross-cutting enablers such as digital innovation, biotechnology, climate finance, and capacity building. Implementation, however, must be context-specific, tailored to the ecological, social, and economic conditions of different regions, and grounded in the principle of a just transition that actively supports smallholders, Indigenous Peoples, and vulnerable rural communities.

The Missing Link: Soil Security

Despite these strengths, the Action Agenda does not explicitly address Soil Security, a foundational issue that underpins the success of both climate mitigation and adaptation in agriculture.

Soil security refers to the sustainable management of soil to ensure long-term food production, biodiversity conservation, water quality, climate regulation, and human health.

Its absence in the Agenda risks overlooking a critical component of land systems that cuts across multiple themes.

While objectives such as “land restoration” and “sustainable agriculture” are included, these often emphasise visible changes in land cover, like reforestation or erosion control, without acknowledging the invisible degradation of soil functions, including declining organic matter, loss of microbial biodiversity, or soil structure decline. These hidden forms of degradation severely constrain the success of climate-smart agriculture and restoration initiatives.