This new report from the Food and Land Use (FOLU) Coalition and SDSN's Food, Environment, Land and Development (FELD) Action Tracker, presents results from a systematic analysis of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted before October 2021 by G20 members and key forested countries from the FOLU Coalition, in advance of COP26. It assesses how action-oriented the NDCs are in terms of transforming the food and land sector, what specific policy measures they propose and where policy gaps and opportunities are.

The 15 reviewed NDCs represent over 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions and include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, the European Union, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Russian Federation, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The brief is accompanied by individual country profiles for each NDC.

Six years on from the Paris Agreement, the world’s largest emitters are still showing weak commitments and insufficient actions to reducing emissions and increasing carbon sinks in the food and land sector. Policymakers must urgently set ambitious, detailed and actionable policies to transform food and land use systems in order to reach net zero emissions by mid-century.