https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158206

Spring, A., Nelson, E., Knezevic, I., Ballamingie, P., and Blay-Palmer, A.: Special Issue Levering Sustainable Food Systems to Address Climate Change (Pandemics and Other Shocks and Hazards): Possible Transformations, Sustainability, 13, 8206, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158206 , 2021

Since we first conceived of this Special Issue, “Levering Sustainable Food Systems to Address Climate Change—Possible Transformations”, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. That said, while the pandemic has shifted our collective focus away from climate change and biodiversity loss (among other ecological challenges), it has also made people working in the realm of sustainability realize more acutely the urgency of addressing these issues. Building a more sustainable world—in which we all have access to healthy food; use renewable resources for power; regenerate our ecosystems; halt biodiversity loss; and enjoy dignified fair work—can help remedy many crises. It is even more relevant as we emerge from pandemic times that we double our efforts to advance towards a more just and sustainable future.
The bad news about climate change is well-known. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [1], we have until 2030 to enact unprecedented changes to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change, and to adapt to unavoidable climate disruption already underway. To achieve this, global carbon emissions must reach net zero by 2050 [1,2]. Researchers have demonstrated that sustainable food systems offer many solutions to confront this climate crisis [3,4]. This is a daunting task, requiring an overhaul of the existing industrially focused global food system, which currently contributes up to 37% of GHG emissions (IPCC 2018). As the world moves towards the Food System Summit convened by the UN General Assembly, the completion of the Global Framework on Biodiversity and the next Global Climate Change Conference in the fall of 2021, there is both hope for change and fear we will go even further down the profit-driven path that has precipitated the dire circumstances we now face.
However, it is clear we have the tools to make positive change happen. Evidence from multi-disciplinary, community-engaged research points to the key role played by regionally focused food systems that are circular, diverse, equitable and deliberative to serve as levers for change [3,4,5,6,7]. These systems offer transformative pathways for networks of people around the world to work together to build more biodiverse, culturally and economically diverse, adaptable and inclusive food communities [8].

Northern-Water-Futures & Knowledge Mobilization Core Team, Refereed Publications

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158206