Reflections from the WHO ACE Regional Roundtable on Food Systems, Health, Climate and Environment
What do food systems have to do with climate change? That was the focus of a regional roundtable hosted by the WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health (WHO ACE) in Seoul, Korea in July.
From 2-3 July, the McCabe Centre was invited to attend the meeting on food systems, climate, environment and health which aimed to develop a new regional strategy for the WHO Western Pacific region on food systems and climate change. The roundtable brought together over 30 participants from WHO Country offices, research institutions, development partners and civil society organizations.
Through three strategic priority areas, the meeting explored how food systems can be both a driver of crises but also a lever for change:
- Promoting healthy and sustainable diets through policies and institutions;
- Strengthening food–health monitoring to forecast risk and guide action; and
- Spotlighting and connecting local solutions for diverse, healthy and resilient food systems.
Our Legal Policy Advisor, Clare Slattery, attended the meeting, as well as a pre-workshop meeting looking at retail food environments, and highlighted the links between climate change and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
Climate change ― the most pressing agenda of our time ― and NCDs ― the leading cause of death worldwide ― are intertwined. Unhealthy diet is recognised as a major NCD risk factor. Many unhealthy foods, such as processed meats or packaged junk foods, also have significant environmental impacts. Improving diets not only reduces NCDs but also impacts climate change with the production, distribution and consumption of unhealthy food, contributing to greenhouse gases and environmental degradation. The largest amount of greenhouse gases from food comes from agriculture and land use. The World Health Organization has recognised laws such as front-of-pack labelling, food procurement policies, fiscal policies and regulations on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children to be some of the most cost-effective measures countries can take to improve diets.
Laws and policies have potential to promote both healthier and more sustainable food systems. For example, policies reducing the consumption of ultra-processed foods can also reduce plastic use and therefore plastic waste disposal in the environment.
For more, the WHO ACE report from the roundtable has been published here.