Open Letter to World Leaders - ourkidsclimate.org

How to Achieve a Planetary Health Diet Through System and Paradigm Change?

The call for a transformation toward planetary health diets (such as the one suggested by the EAT-Lancet Commission in 2019) is getting louder and more urgent. Such diets take into account not only human health, but also the ecological sustainability of global food systems and the natural systems that enable human societies to flourish. More recently the 2022 IPCC AR6 Working Group III report also acknowledged this point. The report suggests a shift towards more plant-based diets for high meat-consuming population groups, as these diets are considered by many to be essential for climate change mitigation and adaptation, for restoring damaged ecosystems, and for alleviating the sixth mass extinction of species.<br/><br/>Food-related consumer practices, consumer behaviours and characteristics (gender, class, etc.) have been the focus of significant and high-quality social science research. However, sustainability transformation in food systems is largely a political and power-related question. This Research Topic draws attention to prioritising questions of power in this context. How can we identify and influence drivers - beyond individual practices - to generate system and paradigm level change? The incumbent actors (e.g. various industries) and structures (e.g. those related to subsidies) strongly resist transformational change. For example, even when industry actors seemingly accept change, they prefer to align it with their own short-term business interests and existing...