Political silence on the climate impacts of western diets

"It’s mainly meat and dairy production that are contributing to agricultural emissions and to clearing forests. And those forests, by the way, are mainly cleared in the Global South in order to feed the diets of the global north," Maria-Krystyna Duval, chief programmes and impact officer at Client Earth, told the Client Earth Summit 2024.

"So where can we make the biggest shift in our diets? It’s in the Global North, where we consume beef and lamb, which are the biggest culprits when it comes to meat consumption."

The global population is set to rise from 8 billion today to 10 billion people worldwide by 2050, and 11 billion by the end of the century. Ensuring that populations across the world have access to nutritious food, delivered in an affordable and sustainable way, is a challenging problem that is not going away.  

Environmentalist George Monbiot has claimed that a country like the UK, with a population of 68 million, could produce enough food for 200 million if every single person switched to an exclusively plant-based diet. However, this seems unlikely to happen, not only due to consumer preferences but also a lack of political will in the Global North to encourage people to change their consumption habits. 

As Steven Lord, senior researcher in food system economics at the University of Oxford, told the Client Earth Summit, "telling people what to eat is political suicide in any short-term political system. Yet the studies show again and again that one of the main levers we have is dietary change."

Agriculture’s carbon footprint

According to Our World in Data, food production accounts for 26 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Half the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, and 70 per cent of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture. A kilogram of beef (beef herd), the platform further indicates, creates 99kg of greenhouse gas emissions, lamb produces 40kg and cheese produces 24kg. Compared to rice (4kg), potatoes (0.5kg) and nuts (0.5kg), the emission savings from plant-based food consumption are hugely significant. 

Yet, agriculture is repeatedly marginalised in Global North political debates on how to address the climate emergency. This is a missed opportunity, experts point out, given that reducing meat and dairy consumption can lead to cost savings for consumers, whereas other aspects of the green transition, such as switching to electric cars or insulating homes, come with a price tag that consumers may struggle to pay in a cost of living crisis. 

COP28 in autumn 2023, eight years after the Paris Agreement, was the first conference of international political leaders to include a day dedicated to food and agriculture.

Joao Campari, global leader of food practice at the World Wildlife Fund, told COP28: "Business as usual food systems would use nearly the whole carbon budget for a 2-degree Celsius world." 

Lack of political will

Although COP28 did produce a non-binding declaration on food and agriculture, signed by 159 states, including the US and the UK, the text of the declaration focuses on gradually adapting current food and agricultural systems. Notably, it does not take proactive steps to mitigate climate impacts and change Global North consumption habits. There is no mention in the declaration of scaling down production of meat or dairy products. 

Emile Frison, a representative of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, said, "The glaring omission of food system transformation and agriculture emissions in the final text is a stark betrayal of urgency […] We cannot afford another lost year for food and climate action."

Powerful business interests block change

Big meat and dairy lobbyists showed up in record numbers at COP28, with industrial agriculture firms sending three times as many delegates as the previous year. JBS, the largest meat producer in the world with an annual revenue of USD 50bn, sent 11 delegates, including its chief executive Gilberto Tomazoni. 

JBS is responsible for slaughtering 13 million animals per day, and is chronically beset with scandals.

According to the Global Institute of Investigative Journalism, "JBS and its network of subsidiaries have been linked to allegations of high-level corruption, modern-day 'slave labour' practices, illegal deforestation, animal welfare violations and major hygiene breaches.

"In 2017 its holding company agreed to pay one of the biggest fines in global corporate history - $3.2bn - after admitting bribing hundreds of politicians."

In addition to widespread political complicity, even non-profit organisations in the Global North appear reluctant to challenge big meat and dairy producers.

In 2014, environmentalist Kip Andersen revealed in his documentary Cowspiracy how major charities such as Greenpeace won’t promote dietary changes, and instead focus overwhelmingly on the transition to green energy, plastic pollution, etc. Their messaging on sustainable agriculture focuses on reducing use of toxic pesticides, chemical fertilisers and genetically modified seeds, but does not mention reducing consumption of animal products. 

In the documentary, Andersen suggests that it is simply too politically challenging to raise the topic of diet. Consumers don't want to be told what to eat, he points out, which leads non-profits such as Greenpeace to worry they will lose public, political and corporate support if they attempt to push it.

Global south suffers disproportionately

As in other areas, people in the Global South bear the brunt of the Global North's lifestyle choices. However, the impact of deforestation and land clearing for agribusiness go beyond biodiversity loss, droughts, wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events. The activities of large-scale agribusiness represent a security threat to indigenous populations in the Amazon and other climate critical forests. 

According to Global Witness, nearly 2,000 land and environmental defenders were killed between 2012 and 2022 for standing up to agribusiness and other corporate and political actors.

In 2022, almost nine in ten recorded killings took place in Latin America, and one in five killings took place in the Amazon rainforest. Indigenous communities bear the brunt of this violence. 

Indigenous people represent just 5 per cent of the global population, yet 34 per cent of the land and environmental defenders killed in 2022 were from Indigenous communities. In addition to the constant threat of violence, these tribes and nations are also losing the land they have inhabited for generations.

Laura Furones, senior advisor to the Land and Environmental Defenders Campaign at Global Witness, said, "More than 100 countries committed to halting deforestation by 2030 when they signed the Glasgow Declaration at COP26 less than two years ago. Yet we now know that 10 per cent more primary forests were lost in 2022 than in 2021."

She added, "If we are to keep the forests standing, we must recognise that this relies upon the protection of those who call the forest home. Addressing the escalating climate emergency and upholding human rights must go hand in hand."

The overarching sentiment in the Summit was clear: In order to tackle agricultural emissions, political leaders worldwide, and particularly in the Global North, must step up and challenge the activities of multi-national agribusinesses like JBS. But consumers in the Global North also have a vital role to play in reducing demand for meat and dairy products. 

As Maria-Krystyna Duval told the Client Earth Summit, "What we put on our plate can change things. We have the agency to make those choices on a daily basis that are good for the planet, good for biodiversity loss and the protection of things like fresh water sources that are so essential for human, plant and animal life."

Image by Monika Guzikowska.