COP27 kicks off in November, and is one of the most important climate change conferences in the world. It will be taking place in Egypt, marking the first time the conference will be hosted on African soil.
A coalition of food awareness organisations, which are being led by non-governmental organisation ProVeg International, will be setting up a Food4Climate Pavilion.
“Approval by the UN to set up the Food4Climate Pavilion at COP27 really marks a tectonic shift in the UN’s approach to food systems,” Raphael Podselver, head of UN Advocacy at ProVeg, says. “We hope the pavilion will engage policymakers around the world to address the challenges posed by agriculture and encourage countries to embrace the solutions.”
Under the banner, Diet Change Not Climate Change, ProVeg and partners will be engaging UN member states to transition to more plant-based food systems and diets as part of their climate policy.
“Inaction on food systems at this stage is no longer an option. We need to transition more to plant-based diets to bring down both methane and CO2 emissions effectively,” Podselver adds. “The scientific evidence shows that this transition can help put the brake on climate change as well as ensure food security for future generations.”
Driving the transition
In order to end industrial animal agriculture, the coalition brings together organisations with various specialties, such as 50by40, which concentrate on the just livestock transition. Upfield, Oatly, and Impossible Foods, among other food firms, will contribute their expertise in promoting dietary changes toward more plant-based diets.
Along with the Jeremy Coller Foundation and the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), which had led a global investor coalition urging governments to disclose specific targets for reducing agricultural emissions as part of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) prior to the most recent COP26, these organisations are included in the ProVeg campaign Diet Change Not Climate Change.
In its Sixth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was published earlier in May, the IPCC predicted that by 2029, the global meat consumption will rise by 14%. In actuality, the food system uses 50% of all livable land, 70% of all freshwater, and 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
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