Annalena Baerbock, the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations and former minister from Germany, speaks at the high-level session at COP30 in Belém, Brasil on November 17, 2025. (Texas Impact Photo)
Texas Impact | Nov. 18, 2025
At the start of the first day of the second week of COP30, a high level session was held with dignitaries from around the world, summarizing the work of the first week of the conference and laying out the important agenda items for the second week.
One of the speakers in that event was Annalena Baerbock, the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations and former minister from Germany. She talked about the ebbs and flows of the work of climate policy and negotiations but she encouraged those present to focus on the flows, the ways that working together can make a difference toward a future where people live in community with other species and components of the natural world. She named three of these flows, not from a sense of naivete about the challenges, but from a place of hope inspired by people who come together and push forward in spite of setbacks. The flows she named included:
- the unstoppable rise of clean energy
- her observation that innovation around sustainable solutions is no longer confined to a few countries, investors, or types of people
- the reality that we live in an abundant world where the solutions and funding needed already exist.
She invited negotiators and others to join together in this critical time of decision making and agenda setting, in alignment with the six Action Agenda axes: Energy/Industry/Transport, Forests, Oceans and Biodiversity, Agriculture and Food Systems, Cities/Infrastructure/Water, and Human and Social Development.
Each of the Action Agenda axes relates to a life of faith because they represent ways that we care for others and our common home. However, perhaps the one that speaks most directly to Jesus’ own ministry is the one about food. Jesus sat at table, was recognized over broken bread, provided fish on multiple occasions, and told parables at fig trees and farms. The production, distribution, consumption, and abundance of the food supply was an integral party of Jesus’ ministry, as it is for the church’s ministry today.
It is widely acknowledged that food production accounts for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions today, contributing significantly to climate change. Many emissions are associated with methane production during meat production. In addition, fertilizer use also represents a large percentage of emissions from the food production. Packaging, refrigeration, and transportation are also large contributors to the emissions total. Deforestation to create pastureland for livestock or farmland for crops exacerbates the problem by reducing the number of trees that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. As humans seek to reduce emissions, transforming habits around food represents an opportunity that cannot be overlooked in good conscience.
The strategies that countries use to reduce emissions from the food supply diverge on several counts. Two examples illustrate some of the range of options.
In Brazil, reducing deforestation is the first and most important goal, followed by reducing high fertilizer-use crops such as soy, and then working with cattle processors to operate within monitoring and auditing guidelines that incentivize best practices.
By contrast in Denmark, there is a National Action Plan for Plant Based Foods, encouraging collaboration between farmers, companies, research, and civil society, to reduce the reliance on meat in the consumer’s diet and thereby reduce the emissions associated with cattle production and deforestation. In the city of Amsterdam, local city officials have sent a 60/40 goal, meaning that by 2030, 60% of the food bought and sold within city limits will be plant based and 40% will be animal based.
Other locations champion the use of local foods, reducing caffeine, sugar, and alcohol consumption where they are not locally produced, and allowing chefs to be the ambassadors of foods that might be unfamiliar at first.
Enric Noguerra, a European cities campaigner with the Plant Based Treaty, an organization that encourages cities to make commitments like the one in Amsterdam, pointed out that we produce enough food on this planet for 10 billion people, but still hunger and malnutrition are leading causes of preventable deaths. Making choices around food supply at every level can help transform the ability of the earth to sustain food supplies in the future for our children and theirs.
In an interview he shared preparing for COP this year, Noguerra reminded listeners of the Native American saying, “When we’ve cut the last tree, we will remember that we can’t eat money.” As Jesus followers, the time has come to recognize the holy connections between a table fellowship and the intersecting issues of food security for all, human health that depends on a healthy diet, biodiversity that is preserved in forest ecosystems, and climate.
The Rev. Laura Baumgartner is the pastor of the Haller Lake United Methodist Church in Seattle, WA. She serves as co-Caretaker of God’s Creation Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest conference of the United Methodist Church with Rev. Jackie Celin and works closely with the Commission on Environmental Stewardship in her conference.