From ambition to action: Making climate and nutrition commitments count at COP31

Integrated systems. Gender-responsive approaches. Smarter food-system strategies. All are essential for improving nutrition in a changing climate, but none are likely to succeed without accountability.

As leaders gather for the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31), the conversation is shifting from ambition to implementation. With dedicated discussions on food, agriculture and health, alongside growing attention to adaptation finance and resilience, the focus is increasingly on whether climate commitments are delivering meaningful results for people and communities.

The 2026 Global Nutrition Report offers an important message for this new phase of climate action: commitments matter, but commitments alone do not improve outcomes. Real progress depends on accountability that extends beyond reporting and tracking to ask whether commitments are backed by financing, governance, implementation capacity and resilience planning.

Moving beyond good intentions

Over the past decade, governments, donors and other stakeholders have made nutrition commitments with clearer targets and stronger monitoring frameworks. But better-designed commitments do not automatically translate into better outcomes.

The report argues that we must shift the focus from procedural to substantive accountability, which asks a more important question: are the systems needed to deliver results actually in place? Amongst government commitments submitted to the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Paris 2025 Summit, the report finds that few specified secured financing, and notable gaps remain in resilience planning and gender-responsive action.

This challenge is highly relevant to COP31. As climate impacts intensify and public finances come under pressure, success will depend not on the number of pledges announced, but on how they will shape stronger food and health systems, healthier diets and greater resilience.

Embedding nutrition into climate action

Despite growing recognition of the links between climate and nutrition, the report highlights that nutrition remains under-prioritised in many climate planning and financing processes. Only 2% of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and 16% of the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) assessed in 2025 include explicit resource mobilisation commitments and plans for nutrition, reflecting a broader disconnect between climate ambition and the budgets, mandates and implementation systems needed to deliver nutrition outcomes and strengthen resilience to climate shocks.

COP31 presents an opportunity to change that. Governments and climate finance providers can strengthen accountability by integrating nutrition into adaptation plans backed by budgets and clear delivery responsibilities, aligning food system investments with nutrition outcomes, protecting essential nutrition services during climate shocks and publicly reviewing whether climate financing reaches the communities most vulnerable to both climate and nutrition risks.

The central message of the 2026 Global Nutrition Report is clear: success should not be measured by the promises we make, but by the outcomes we achieve. In a world facing climate pressures, fiscal constraints and rising nutrition challenges, accountability is what turns ambition into impact.

Dr Mariachiara Di Cesare and Dr Shuhei Nomura are members of the GNR's Independent Expert Group and two of the co-authors of the 2026 Global Nutrition Report.