Reflections from New York Climate Week 2025

Natasha Hurley, Deputy Director of Foodrise, reflects on her visit to New York Climate Week in September 2025.
October 14, 2025

Natasha Hurley, Deputy Director of Foodrise, reflects on her visit to New York Climate Week in September 2025, highlighting the growing momentum around transforming global food systems to tackle the climate crisis.

Maybe it’s because of the job I do but everywhere I look in 2025, I see food rising up the agenda at national and international events. 

This is unsurprising in the current context: as a report last year from the Council on Strategic Risks told us, with conflict and climate change continuing to disrupt food production and reduce food availability, including in traditionally stable countries, the geopolitical importance of food is growing. Distressingly, we have seen the weaponisation of food in multiple theatres of war including Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine.  

Of course, our food system has become a major driver of climate change in its own right. In September I was in the United States for the annual New York Climate Week, which brings together civil society, philanthropy, policymakers and businesses to grapple with major issues of our time, including the energy transition, environmental justice and circular economy. This year, for only the second year in a row, it also had a dedicated ‘Food Day’ hosted by TILT Collective as well as an all-day event on Land, Forests and Food Sovereignty Foodrise co-hosted with Friends of the Earth US and allies.  

I presented data we commissioned revealing that half a trillion dollars of private finance were pumped into production of high-emissions meat and dairy between 2015 and 2022 in the form of credit, which has facilitated the massive expansion of dozens of industrial livestock corporations over recent decades. This is a sector that requires huge amounts of land – both directly to graze cattle, and indirectly to grow feed crops and generates significant emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.  

In fact the livestock sector alone will use up half of the world’s 1.5-degree Celsius emissions budget by 2030 (rising to 81% by 2050) if we don’t take action to follow the science by cutting meat and dairy production. However, as shown by a fascinating new report by Changing Markets Foundation launched in New York last week, the livestock industry is mobilising huge resources to stop that happening – notably in a carefully orchestrated drive to discredit scientists in the wake of the ground-breaking EAT-Lancet report in 2019. This defined a ‘planetary health diet’ to create a future in which both people and planet can thrive, stating that consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar would have to be reduced by more than 50%.  

With the 2025 EAT-Lancet update due for publication tomorrow, let’s brace for a new wave of misinformation-peddling. Foodrise’s Executive Director Carina Millstone will be in Stockholm for the launch where she will be trailing some new research we have in the pipeline on the fertiliser industry – another key enabler of Big Livestock’s stranglehold on our food system – watch this space for further details!  

As livestock emissions soar, countries around the world are also grappling with a spiralling public health crisis because we are producing and consuming (too much) food that is bad for us – including red meat and sugar. It’s shocking to think that one of the leading causes of non-communicable diseases, which kill tens of millions of people every year, is our diet. In the UK, childhood obesity rates are horrifying – a House of Lords Committee reported earlier this year that over one-third of children leave primary school overweight or obese. Add to this the fact that industrial meat and dairy production accounts for approximately three-quarters of global antibiotic use, which is driving the global spread of drug-resistant superbugs and it’s clear that our food system is currently a lethal mess.  

So, huge problems to solve but also huge opportunities to improve. Denmark is leading the way in showing how dietary shift can be achieved through its National Action Plan for Plant-Based Foods. In France, childhood obesity has actually declined thanks to smart public policy interventions. The City of New York itself, which takes a “health first” approach to food procurement, announced a ban on processed meat in public schools and hospitals this summer. And of course, in many countries such as India, nutritious plant-based and plant-rich diets have been the norm for centuries.  

As Prof Sridhar reminds us, transformation of food systems is not a linear, individual process, but a complex, societal one in which governments have a central role to play. For too long, Big Food has thrown us off the scent by emphasising consumer choice and demand-side policies over measures to regulate production and supply.  

Through our work exposing how corporations (including retailers and global financiers) have moulded our food system to suit their interests, Foodrise and our allies are tackling that argument head-on – joining our voices to those of climate scientists and public health experts who share our vision of a fair food system that ensures  everyone has access to healthy, affordable food without destroying the planet. 

Links for further reading