Opinion | A Year Of Quiet But Consequential Victories For Soil & A Missed Opportunity at COP30

This year’s World Soil Day offers a moment to reflect on a quietly transformative period for one of our most overlooked natural systems. In 2025, soil — the thin, living skin of the Earth on which all human and ecological life depend — finally began receiving the political and institutional attention it deserves. Yet on the global climate stage, where the future is supposed to be shaped, soil remained largely absent. This contradiction defines the year that was. Across the world, major governance milestones signalled a new recognition of soil as a foundation for climate stability, food security, and national resilience. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) adopted a landmark resolution on soil security, elevating soil health

to the same level of urgency as water, forests, and biodiversity. The European Union’s new Soil Monitoring Law became the most ambitious regional framework ever created for restoring and tracking soil health, placing accountability and scientific rigour at the centre of environmental policy. Perhaps the most inspiring development came from Africa. On 6 November 2025, the Pan-African Parliament adopted the African Union’s first Model Law on Sustainable Soil Management — a blueprint to guide countries in restoring degraded lands, strengthening soil governance, and ensuring farmers transition toward regenerative practices. For a continent that loses billions in productivity each year due to soil degradation, this model law offers an unprecedented foundation for environmental and economic renewal. Taken together, these steps make 2025 one of the most encouraging years for soil in recent memory. They reflect a growing understanding that healthy soils underpin everything we rely on: food, water, livelihoods, biodiversity, and climate resilience. Yet, when the world gathered at COP30 to define its climate priorities, soil barely entered the conversation.

COP30: A Global Stage Where Soil Barely Appeared

At COP30 — the annual climate summit where countries decide how to secure a liveable future — soil should have been central. Instead, it remained on the margins. The only formal negotiation track that deals with agriculture and food systems ended abruptly, with the first week of talks failing to reach agreement and no extension into the second week. With this process scheduled to end in 2026, the world is now three years into discussions without a single concrete decision about agriculture or soil.
Experts within the UN climate system have repeatedly warned that countries still lack three essentials: large-scale finance for soil and land restoration, national climate plans that meaningfully include food systems, and proper measurement tools to track soil carbon and soil health. These gaps have been acknowledged for years but remain largely unaddressed.
There was a glimmer of hope when the UN’s Standing Committee on Finance, for the first time in its 15-year history, held a forum dedicated to agriculture and food systems. It was a long-overdue signal that the world recognises the importance of soils. But even this conversation stayed at the surface. The committee acknowledged the need for financing soil health but offered no actual mechanisms, structures, or delivery pathways to make it happen. In effect, the world recognised the challenge but still has not built the system to respond to it.
Outside the formal negotiations, voluntary announcements sounded more promising: billions pledged for restoration, millions of hectares linked to regeneration, and millions of farmers reached. But these numbers, while encouraging, pale in comparison to the trillions invested in clean energy. Agriculture and soil systems remain dramatically underfunded, despite their proven ability to store carbon, regulate water, build resilience, and reduce emissions at scale.
The truth is straightforward and sobering: soils could help address nearly 30 per cent of the climate crisis, yet they receive only a fraction of the attention and investment they require. When soil is absent at COP, the world is ignoring one of its most powerful and immediate climate solutions.

A Year of Progress, but Not Yet a Turning Point

Despite the inspiring legal and policy advancements across regions, soil still struggles to find its rightful place in global climate action. The new laws and resolutions of 2025 offer hope — but without being woven into the financial and policy machinery of the climate system, they will not achieve the transformation the planet urgently needs.
For countries like India, soil health is not an abstract environmental concern. Nearly a third of India’s land is degraded. For 1.4 billion people, soil is the basis of food security, water security, rural livelihoods, and climate adaptation. If the world ignores soil, it ignores the foundation of India’s future prosperity.
World Soil Day reminds us of an unchanging truth: there is no climate stability, no food, no water, and no economic resilience without healthy soil. The year 2025 showed what progress looks like when nations commit to protecting this precious resource. The challenge ahead is ensuring that global climate politics catch up.
If 2025 was the year soil finally entered the halls of governance, then 2026 must be the year it enters the heart of global climate action.
Mahathi Aguvaveedi is a food systems policy professional with over 10 years of experience in food systems, public health, and international development in the Global South. She is currently a steering committee member, UNCCD Youth Caucus, and a Policy Researcher at Save Soil. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Columbia University. Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.