World leaders must address the impacts of animal farming on climate change

8 November 2021

Eurogroup For Animals calls on world leaders to enhance pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to better uphold the obligations derived from the Paris Agreement. Linking animal protection, trade policies and sustainable food systems would be a first step in the right direction.

Six years after the Paris Agreement, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) is taking place in Glasgow. This conference is particularly important because it’s the first time the ‘ratchet mechanism’ foreseen in the Paris Agreement will be used. 

Indeed, each country is expected to submit enhanced “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) every five years to ratchet up ambition to mitigate climate change.  However, despite the fact that the 2020 conference was postponed due to the pandemic, dozens of countries still have not updated their pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the time of the 2021 conference.

The implications are serious. A global temperature rise of 2°C above pre-industrial levels delivers the probability of dangerous climate change. Hence, GHG emissions need to be drastically reduced but countries continue to do “business as usual”. 

Livestock farming represents a significant share of the planet’s emissions that cannot be ignored as they account for approximately 18% of global GHG emissions, which is more than all transports combined. 

As outlined in the recent IPCC report, we have no time to lose in cutting methane emissions. Reducing livestock numbers could contribute significantly to meet the Paris target, while failing to reduce them will put most of the UN SDGs out of reach. 

World leaders need to explicitly recognise the intrinsic link between animal protection and the UN SDGs, and the importance of animal protection in putting the world on a sustainable path to 2030. Changing the food system and how we treat animals is a major opportunity for climate change mitigation. Political leaders and governments can, for example:

• Redirect subsidies from industrial animal production, the main receiver today, to plant-based ones. 
• Put the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet at the basis for public procurement.
• Invest in the development of plant-based proteins and cultivated meat.
• Use the land differently, since deforestation is driven by animal feed production.

It is also high time to address the impact of trade on climate. Currently, trade agreements liberalise trade without any climate or animal welfare conditions. As a result, they fuel unsustainable production systems, harming people, animals and the planet. For instance, the EU-Mercosur trade deal, by granting significant market access to animal products, will fuel intensification of animal farming which highly contributes to deforestation, which in turn will contribute to climate change. In Brazil alone, over half of the country’s deforestation over the last twenty years came from the beef sector, mainly due to the conversion of forests into cattle pasture. 

Eurogroup for Animals’ contribution

To inform COP26 attendees about the environmental issues associated with animal-related sectors, as well as how improved animal welfare and transformed food systems can help build back better, Eurogroup for Animals have created a leaflet entitled “Protecting Animals to Protect the Planet”.

Download the leaflet

File

Protecting Animals to Protect the Planet

Regards Mark

New film shines light on the environmental impact of animal agriculture

8 November 2021

Eating Our Way to Extinction is a new documentary exploring how our broken food system contributes to ecological collapse around the world. Narrated by Academy Award winner Kate Winslet, the film features undercover footage, shocking evidence from globally renowned figures and leading scientists, and firsthand accounts from Indigenous people directly affected by animal agriculture and climate change.

The film, Eating our Way to Extinction, spotlights the links between our food system and the unfolding ecological crisis – an important message as parties and world leaders gather at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). 

It calls for a switch to a plant-based diet due to unsustainable intensive livestock and fish farming that is leading to routine suffering, deforestation, ocean dead zones and species extinction.

At the COP26 climate summit this week, world leaders have pledged to end and reverse deforestation and lower global emissions of methane by 30 percent by 2030. The film explores both issues and finds that animal agriculture is the largest source of methane emissions and by far the greatest forest destroyer. 

Steep cuts to livestock production will greatly benefit the climate by slashing short-term emissions to give us the circuit-breaker desperately needed to stem global warming.

Eating our Way to Extinction trailer

To inform COP26 attendees about the environmental issues associated with animal-related sectors, as well as how improved animal welfare and transformed food systems can help build back better, Eurogroup for Animals have created a leaflet entitled “Protecting Animals to Protect the Planet”.

Download the leaflet

File

Protecting Animals to Protect the Planet

Link:  Eating Our Way To Extinction | The Documentary (eating2extinction.com)

Regards Mark

Green REV Institute urges Polish President to introduce carbon pricing for food

4 November 2021

Green REV

Just ahead of the UN Climate Summit (COP26), a press briefing was held at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw where Green Rev Institute and Democracy Action delivered an open letter to President Andrzej Duda from the international coalition “Carbon Pricing for Food”.

In the letter, numerous organisations from all over the world appeal to on the presidents of 50 UN member states to introduce fair prices for animal products (meat and dairy) that take into account the costs of their negative impact on the climate. 

Reducing industrial animal production, which accounts for over 14% of greenhouse gas emissions, is one way to meet the Paris Agreement goals, which Poland also ratified in 2015. 

At the same time, the organisations call for lower prices for plant products and compensation for farmers who turn to more sustainable plant-based food production.

Healthy food should be available here and now. That’s why we must stop subsidising animal production in our taxes: meat, dairy, eggs. Animal agriculture is responsible for nitrous oxide and methane emissions, for deforestation, for pollution and excessive use of water, for the decline in biodiversity and for lifestyle diseases (…) Therefore, together with NGOs and companies from all over the world, we turn to President Andrzej Duda to support the transformation of the food system and to support all actors in this process: farmers, consumers, decision-makers and politicians. It’s time for real leadership to change and fix the broken food system

Anna Spurek, COO of Green REV Institute

Read more at source

Read our report: The EU campaigns to promote meat, eggs and dairy

Regards Mark