You can call it a carnivores’ COP-out: Meat industry carves out a place at climate summit
Self-delusion can be a powerful force. And so can economic self-interest. Which is why, along with planeloads of fossil fuel lobbyists, the United Nations’ just-started COP28 summit in Dubai is being attended by a large number of meat and dairy heavy-hitters.
Yes, there are cattlemen pressing the flesh along with the oilmen.
Their message? That their industries, despite clear evidence to the contrary, do not contribute a great deal to climate change.
Leading the pack, reports The Guardian, is JBS (JBSAY), a company based in Brazil, which is the world’s largest beef-exporting nation. Also there are the Illinois-based Global Dairy Platform and the somewhat sinisterly-named American Meat Institute (remember the Tobacco Institute?).
Their plan? To “tell its story and tell it well,” according to documents seen by the paper.
It should be uphill battle. After all, the dairy sector alone is responsible for 3.4% of global emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than that caused by aviation. Meanwhile, the meat industry pushes out even more, with estimates of about 7% from the FAO, or about the same as those of India, the world’s most populous nation and a big consumer of coal.
It all comes down to the belches (and toots) of cattle, pigs and sheep. And then there’s the fact that the emissions are largely methane, which, though shorter-lived than carbon effluents, is up to 80 more times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period, with scientists saying that gases from agriculture alone could push the world beyond the 1.5C (2.7F) rise in temperature that risks tipping the world into irreversible climate breakdown.
So what are the meat mavens and dairy denizens going to say? According to the papers seen by The Guardian, they have talking points arguing that meat is “sustainable nutrition” and that its production is beneficial to the environment, claiming that livestock can help maintain healthy soils, which can store carbon (something met with dubiousness by climate scientists). They also talk about it helping relieve global hunger, another questionable claim, according to the UN-linked Committee on World Food Security.
In addition, the documents also reveal that they plan to influence non-country pavilions via sponsorships of between $10,000 and $200,000, which is seen as a way to host information sessions and bring guests along to receptions.
No doubt kebabs will be on the menu.
