Corporate capture of COP – how do we put people and planet above profit?

2025 sees us arrive at the 30th UN Climate Change Conference – or COP30. 

Just weeks before the conference, the UN Environment Programme warned that the world is severely off track to limit global heating to 1.5C. Clearly, this is the perfect time for negotiators to double down on serious commitments that can urgently bring the target back into focus and finally put corporate control over our food systems in the spotlight. 

But if the recent string of COP summits is anything to go by, this outcome is looking unlikely. For one thing, food systems have historically been low on COP agendas and largely absent from their final agreements. 

This is a glaring omission, considering that food systems are responsible for one third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and: 

• The global livestock sector is estimated to be responsible for between 12% and 19% of total human-caused emissions. Making it one of the world’s highest emitting sectors, according to recent analysis by Foodrise, Friends of the Earth U.S., Greenpeace Nordic, and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy 

• The production of fertilisers made with fossil fuels has increased nine-fold since 1961 – releasing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas which is 300 times more powerful than CO2 in trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period. 

• 40% of the world’s food is thrown away each year, contributing 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

So why is food still missing from the COP table? 

A small handful of corporations stand to make huge profits from delaying climate action. In the food industry, this includes some the world’s largest meat, dairy, fertiliser and pesticide companies, who are increasingly showing up at COPs to influence negotiations – and even participate directly. 

Since COP26, DeSmog has tracked the attendance of ‘Big Agriculture’ delegates, finding that their presence more than doubled at COP27, and went on to triple at COP28, with over 340 representatives attending negotiations in Dubai. 

Even more concerningly, industry representatives are being upgraded from ‘observer’ status to being included within country delegations – granting them more access and power to influence negotiations. DeSmog’s analysis has found that 40% of food industry lobbyists travelled to COP29 with country badges – an increase from 30% at COP28, and just 5% at COP27. 

Meat giant JBS has attended via the delegation of Brazil for the past three years – the country which has consistently brought in the highest numbers of Big Ag lobbyists. With Brazil now being the host of COP30, we expect this shameful trend will continue. 

This corporate capture threatens to stall progress on transforming food systems at COP, and gives these companies a license to further greenwash their destructive, exploitative practices. Research by Changing Markets has revealed extensive efforts by the meat industry to control narratives on agriculture in the lead up to COP30. 

Meanwhile, those working towards just, resilient food systems – including small-scale farmers, Indigenous peoples and food justice activists – are frequently excluded from COPs. Attending COP is a significant expense, and it can be difficult to obtain a badge without existing political or industry connections. Research also shows that border and visa restrictions are increasingly barring the participation of people from the Global South. 

There are initiatives working to change this, including the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, which supported a delegation of 42 community leaders – including small-scale farmers, fishers, and Indigenous peoples – to attend COP28. But without intervention to tackle the dominance of the Big Ag lobby, it threatens to drown out these much-needed perspectives. 

Foodrise is not attending COP30 in person but will be keenly following its progress – in particular, uncovering evidence of corporate takeovers and calling out instances of Big Agriculture hijacking the negotiations. 

Only by resisting corporate capture, and continuing to build food sovereignty movements beyond COP, will we enact real change. 

Sunita Ramani is Campaign Manager at Foodrise. 

Foodrise’s COP30 blog series exposes how corporate interests – from agribusiness to industrial meat and fish farming – dominate food discussions at COP, shaping climate policy to protect profits instead of people and the planet.  

Through research and reporting, data analysis, and storytelling, each post reveals a different layer of the corporate capture of our food systems, connecting local struggles to global power dynamics.