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Belém, Brazil (November 19, 2025) — At COP30, the governments of Brazil and the UK announced the Belém Declaration on Fertilisers, a ministerial call to action to improve the production and optimize the use of fertilizers in all their forms for food security, nature, and the climate. Japan also endorsed the call to action, along with a group of civil society organizations.

Following is a statement from Richard Waite, Director, Agriculture Initiatives, World Resources Institute:

“Synthetic and organic fertilizers are essential for achieving high crop and pasture yields and for feeding a growing global population. Yet, they are also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to air and water pollution. This call to action to improve fertilizer production and use is an important step forward for people, nature and climate.

“Globally, more than half of the nitrogen applied to crop fields is lost to the environment rather than absorbed by crops—a significant inefficiency. Fertilizer use is also unevenly distributed, with overapplication in some regions causing pollution and underapplication in others leading to low yields and food insecurity.

“More efficient nitrogen use is a multiple-win solution — it can cut emissions, increase profits for farmers, sustain high yields and food security, improve air and water quality, and strengthen soil health and resilience. Our research shows that raising global nitrogen use efficiency from less than 50 percent today to 70 percent in the future could reduce GHG emissions by 0.6 gigatons of CO2 equivalent per year. Producing lower-carbon fertilizers offers further potential to slash emissions.

“Achieving these wins requires smarter nutrient management, wider adoption of enhanced efficiency fertilizers such as nitrification inhibitors, and breeding crops that use nitrogen more effectively. More R&D is also needed for promising pathways such as biological nitrification inhibition and biofertilizers. Governments should develop policies and redirect subsidies toward strategies that improve nitrogen use efficiency, reduce nitrogen losses, and lower emissions from fertilizer production.”