Climate campaign group Plant Based Treaty is out in force at the COP27 summit in Egypt, which begins today.
A delegation of seven representatives from the Plant Based Treaty have travelled to Sharm El Sheikh to press their case for a binding international treaty to enable a comprehsive switch to a plant based food system.
Nilgun Egin, Plant Based Treaty campaigner, says: “The climate crisis is impacting us now and I feel a duty to do all I can to stop it. Negotiating a Plant Based Treaty is essential to combat the crisis and it is imperative COP27 embraces plant-based solutions and acknowledges the role of animal agriculture.”
Yael Gabay, adds: ‘I’m going to COP27 to remind delegates and key stakeholders that food systems have to be put at the forefront of all climate negotiations. It’s imperative for our survival to move towards a plant based diet, shift away from animal agriculture and negotiate a global Plant Based Treaty.’
“I’m going to COP27 to remind delegates and key stakeholders that food systems have to be put at the forefront of all climate negotiations. It’s imperative for our survival to move towards a plant based diet, shift away from animal agriculture and negotiate a global Plant Based Treaty”
Their mission, they say, is to make sure climate science on the methane emergency, land use and plant-based agro-ecological farming is “correctly communicated”. The group argues that a swarth to plant-based diets would reduce land use by 76%, allowing large-scale rewilding and restoration of carbon sinks.
Plant Based Treaty has released six science-based Position Papers calling for plant-based solution The position papers draw on the work of the IPCC and the thesis promoted by the UK journalist and activist George Monbiot in his book Regenesis (Allen Lane, 2022), which, though widely acclaimed, has been criticised for an “anti-farming” stance and the author’s dismissal of organic and agroecolgical alternatives to industrial farming. Monbiot has written: “Every hectare of land we use for extractive industries is a hectare that can’t support wild forests, savannahs, wetlands, natural grasslands and other crucial ecosystems. And farming swallows far more land than any other human activity.”
Max Weiss, Mila Widmer and Nilgun Engin at COP27, Sharm El Sheik
