Agriculture at COP27: Antagonistic Political Framing and Fragmentation of Agricultural Issues Within Climate Negotiations and Beyond

Despite contributing to 37 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture has historically been overlooked in international climate negotiations. However, at the 2022 twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties (COP27), agriculture was a focal point of negotiations within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, culminating in the Four-Year Sharm El Sheikh Joint Initiative on Implementing Climate Action for Agriculture and Food Security. Despite apparent progress, the direction of this joint action remains notably vague and limited. Based on qualitative research conducted prior to and during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, we can attribute this paradox to two main factors. First, competition between four antagonist policy framings obstructs the establishment of a detailed and ambitious institutional agenda within the COP process. Competing players with asymmetrical powers are trying to impose their own framing for addressing climate change issues in agriculture. Second, the fragmentation of the agriculture issue/topic between several regime complexes and within conflicting positions on climate is an obstacle for process bargaining.