by ANITA KRAJNC, LAURA LEE CASCADA, & NITAL JETHALAL
Introduction
Global per capita meat, dairy and egg consumption has been accelerating since the 1950s contributing to the breach of five planetary boundaries, specifically climate change, land-use change, biodiversity, phosphorus and nitrogen, and water use.
We’re facing an unprecedented “code red for humanity,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in 2021. Yet global action has stagnated.
Amidst the lackluster headlines spanning COP27, the UN’s annual climate change convention, held in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, in November 2022, and the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal in December 2022, Guterres—whose own agencies have warned of industrial animal agriculture’s climate perils for more than 15 years—issued a more grassroots plea.
Speaking to the leaders of the C40 cities who gathered in October 2022 at a climate summit of their own, he declared, “With more than half of the world’s population, cities are where the climate battle will largely be won or lost.”
Cities—where unwavering football fandoms are born, debates over classroom curricula are waged, and unique lexicons take form—shape the way we live, learn, and, crucially for planetary health, eat.
Food System Impact on Environment and Climate
The food system accounts for a third of greenhouse gas emissions and would bust the carbon budget even if fossil fuels were ended immediately. The paper cites the 2021 UN Methane Assessment Report, which attributes 32 percent of human-caused methane emissions to animal agriculture, the largest source.
Research from Oxford University’s Joseph Poore published in 2018 found that 83 percent of agricultural land is used for farming animals yet supplies just 18 percent of calories.
Scientific evidence from a 2019 Lancet study shows a plant-based food system will reduce food’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 80 percent and free up more than 3 billion hectares of land for biodiversity and carbon drawdown.
According to the research conducted led by the University of Oxford and published in July 2023 in the journal Nature Food, adopting a vegan diet led to remarkable reductions in climate-heating emissions, water pollution, and land usage, amounting to a significant 75 percent decrease compared to diets that included over 100 grams of meat per day. Moreover, the study revealed that vegan diets also contributed to a substantial 66 percent reduction in the destruction of wildlife and a 54 percent decrease in water consumption.
Background
The Plant Based Treaty has 3Rs and 39 detailed proposals calling for a global transition to a plant-based food system and calls for negotiation of a global treaty as well as local implementation at the municipal level, schools, universities, hospitals, businesses and other local institutions.
The Plant Based Treaty is modeled on the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and inspired by treaties that have addressed the threats of ozone layer depletion and nuclear weapons. Since its launch in August 2021, the initiative has been endorsed by 21 cities, including the Scottish Capital Edinburgh, Los Angeles and Ahmedabad and received support from 100,000 individual endorsers, 5 Nobel laureates, IPCC scientists, Sir Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney, more than 3000 NGOs, community groups and businesses, including Oceanic Preservation Society and chapters of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Extinction Rebellion.
Call to Mayors
Secretary-General Guterres is no stranger to environmental inaction among his peers. In his appeal, he explained that despite decades of tireless work, current national pledges—or a lack thereof—will carry us into the next decade with a 14 percent increase in global emissions.
Facing a near-certain future of mass flooding, heatwaves, biodiversity loss, and displaced populations, Guterres called upon these mayors: “Your citizens look to you to provide leadership, action, and protection that is often lacking at the national level.” These words came just months after a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report announced a dire need to cut methane emissions by a third. And C40 itself hasn’t minced words in advocating for a two-thirds reduction in the world’s most notorious methane emitter: meat.
For these reasons, our organizations and nearly 200 others urged the mayors of C40 to kickstart immediate action to transform our destructive food system on the eve of their annual summit (where, we noted, beef still had a front-row seat on the menu)—but not just at the event’s catered banquets. Instead of waiting years for commitments to trickle down from above, municipal leaders around the world (and particularly those of C40’s nearly 100 major cities, constituting a quarter of the global economy) must seize a rapidly shrinking opportunity to shape food culture from the ground up by prioritizing plant-based foods.
In Towns and Cities, Success Stories
To grasp the oft-overlooked power of the grassroots, consider the case study of Marshall, a small town in Texas cattle country: six-term Mayor Ed Smith, who reaped health benefits after shifting to a plant-based diet in 2008 following a cancer diagnosis, launched a healthy eating campaign, complete with an annual festival, community potlucks, and even visits by a troupe of plant-powered firefighters. Hailing from a ranching family, Smith was already beloved by his citizenry, and his initiative radiated outward, from local churches to the assistant fire chief who kicked his diabetes meds after going plant-based.
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