Healthy Food Systems Australia

International survey shows 81% back forcing big oil to pay for climate destruction People are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of fossil fuel giants all over the storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability, said the head of one green group.

"The results showed a whopping 81% of those surveyed would support taxes fossil fuel companies to pay for damages wrought by “fossil-fuel driven climate disasters”" – Eloise Goldsmith in Pearls and Irritations

johnmenadue.com/post...

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence Abstract. In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information. Here we compile monitoring datasets (published at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15639576; Smith et al., 2025a) to produce updated estimates for key indicators of the state of the climate system: net emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. This year, we additionally include indicators for sea-level rise and land precipitation change. We follow methods as closely as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One report. The indicators show that human activities are increasing the Earth's energy imbalance and driving faster sea-level rise compared to the AR6 assessment. For the 2015–2024 decade average, observed warming relative to 1850–1900 was 1.24 [1.11 to 1.35] °C, of which 1.22 [1.0 to 1.5] °C was human-induced. The 2024-observed best estimate of global surface temperature (1.52 °C) is well above the best estimate of human-caused warming (1.36 °C). However, the 2024 observed warming can still be regarded as a typical year, considering the human-induced warming level and the state of internal variability associated with the phase of El Niño and Atlantic variability. Human-induced warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.27 [0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2015–2024. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high of 53.6±5.2 Gt CO2e yr−1 over the last decade (2014–2023), as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling. Despite this, there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the last decade has slowed compared to the 2000s, and depending on societal choices, a continued series of these annual updates over the critical 2020s decade could track decreases or increases in the rate of the climatic changes presented here.

Our new paper updating key metrics in the IPCC is now out, and the news is grim:

⬆️ Human induced warming now at 1.36C
⬆️ Rate of warming now 0.27C / decade
⬆️ Sharp increase in Earth's energy imbalance
⬇️ Remaining 1.5C carbon budget only 130 GtCO2

essd.copernicus.org/...

MAJOR VICTORY: today, a federal judge has reversed the National Institute of Health's terminations of hundreds of critical research grants that NIH had terminated through an ideological purge. 🧵 (1/4)

Another excellent & helpful paper from Jennifer Clapp & colleagues explaining why excessive corporate power in food systems (& beyond) needs to be addressed. Highly recommend! May be of interest @criticaltakes.bsky.social @katesievert.bsky.social @hfsaus.bsky.social

Now more than ever

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/20836/...

“A farmer’s instinct is to fix things... And that’s what we did.”

After the Trump administration suddenly stopped paying farmers to help provide food for marginalized people in their localities, a group of Californian farmers fought back – and won.

Protecting Public Interest Journalism as a Public Health Good Online webinar about Protecting Public Interest Journalism as a Public Health Good

We are so chuffed the Centre for Health in All Policies Research Translation has invited @croakeynews.bsky.social to partner in this convo: 'Protecting Public Interest Journalism as a Public Health Good'
Please register to join us from 3.30pm AEST on Wed 28 May
events.humanitix.com/protecting-p...

another great paper from one of our founders

Hot Food: Building Melbourne's Food System Resilience in a Warming World Get tickets on Humanitix - Hot Food: Building Melbourne's Food System Resilience in a Warming World hosted by Regen Melbourne. For Purpose Impact Accelerator Hub by Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation,...

🔊Upcoming event by Regen Melbourne (and others)

Hot Food: Building Melbourne's Food System Resilience in a Warming World

Thu, 10 Apr, 9:30am - 1pm AEST

events.humanitix.com/hot-food-bui...

🚨 More than 80 independent nutrition scientists have signed an open letter raising concerns over an industry-backed effort to redefine the Nova food classification system—the very framework that has helped expose the harms of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). 🧵1/7 drive.google.com/file/d/1SDWK...

Breaking News!
Code Yikes!

As of yesterday, Antarctic sea-ice extent set a new minimum for 2025 at 2,086,000 square kilometers. This makes 2025 extent lower than the minimum reached in 2024 and the second lowest minimum on record, behind only 2023.

Will it go even lower? The climate 8-ball says...

Thanks for joining us @amycarrad.bsky.social

In many ways the fight isn't over. FOPL warning labels are a great start, but El Poder is going further. They are continuing to expose the acts of industry in taking over human rights + impacting health in Mexico

Image displaying the junk food day of the dead

They continue to support and promote the FoPL warning labels, including a 'junk food day of the dead' to celebrate their success in getting warning labels put on food packages.
Intimidation tactics continue, especially via social media. There is always the risk that the regulations will be revoked

Website displaying scientific evidence regarding FOPL warning labels

Letters of support from international agencies + the public health community

El Poder gathered the scientific evidence for warning labels and this is available on their labelling website + took this evidence to judges to show their effectiveness.
They also gathered letters of support from the international community, including UN bodies.

Industry argued that FoPL warning labels didn't have scientific support, were unconstitutional and that industry wasn't sufficiently included (even when they had the majority in many of these discussions!)

The supreme court over-ruled the judgement by industry and deemed the action constitutional

Images of the two documentaries produced

Image of projected signs on the front of Coca-Cola HQ

So what did they do?
- they produced two documentaries uncovering the role of industry in food regulation in Mexico & the impact on health (available with English subtitles)
- projected 'excess interference' onto the Coca-Cola headquarters in Mexico (lots of media attention)

The context:
- use of FoP nutrient-based labels were ineffective
- industry self-regulation
- a strong history of revolving doors between industry (esp Coca-Cola) & high-up government roles
- industry had close ties with journalists e.g. paying for their travel and sponsoring them to attend events

Christian Torres is from El Poder del Consumidor, a consumer advocacy organisation which campaigns for honest and clear information for consumers on food (among other amazing things!).

Excited to have our first member event for 2025 - guest speaker Christian Torres is speaking to us about the adoption of front-of-pack warning labels in Mexico

EU plans Donald Trump-style import ban on food Brussels wants to block farm products containing prohibited pesticides

EU plans to use the impending trade war to advance environmental goals by blocking imports of certain foodstuffs grown using banned pesticides

"Early targets could include US crops such as soyabeans which are grown using pesticides EU farmers are not allowed to use"

www.ft.com/content/e488...

We're a little late to the bandwagon - this was announced in Dec. But better late than never to celebrate a win for public health!

Editorial by our very own Priscila Machado - worth a read!

News from Brazil - a tax reform on tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks has been announced!
Accompanied with "a 60% reduction in tax rates for horticultural and minimally processed products, nuts, oils, flours, and items from Brazil’s rich socio-biodiversity."
🥳🥳

www.foodpolitics.com/2025/02/braz...

Did you catch our special live episode from ORFC?

3 panelists: a farmer, an economist and biodiversity researcher, shared their expert perspectives with us on #FueltoFork in front of a live audience.

Listen here: https://buff.ly/4k1NLAq

Produced w/ @ipes-food.org & @futureoffood.bsky.social

Great video about how our health is shaped by the world around us!

We're proud to be a member of Health Equals and join their calls for a cross-government health inequalities strategy that puts health at the heart of government.

🔗 tinyurl.com/y8rmup27

Our new paper, based on data from 1,705 studies, shows that pesticides are toxic to organisms they are not intended to harm, including fungi, microbes, plants, insects, & vertebrates such as ourselves. Questions the wisdom of applying over 3 million tonnes of them every year...

We are producing more food than ever before. Yet 700 million people remain badly undernourished 🤯

The problem? Short-sighted, market-driven policies and greed are ignoring the needs of people and planet 🚨

With bold action, things can be so different 🌄

Here's how ➡️ ipes-food.org/only-politic...

Scientists have a new explanation for the last two years of record heat Rising temperatures are fueled, in part, by declining cloud cover — which could be a potential climate feedback loop.

Climate change is moving faster than scientists projected & they're not totally sure why. One possible explanation is declining cloud cover. If that's true, we may be entering a feedback cycle that accelerates warming much faster than we've modeled.