Interested in learning how eating plant-based can fight climate change? Plant-Based Treaty is an organization that shows cities and individuals how to go vegan for the planet.
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What role do our food habits play in the fight against climate change? The answer is a lot. Just as the current American diet, often referred to as S.A.D, is damaging our health, so too is the current food system to our planet. Yet, the silver lining is that there is still time to change and that involves switching from the standard meat-heavy and processed foods diets to plant-based diets. A report from the United Nations states, “Shifting diets from meat and other animal products to plant-based diets has a high potential for reducing carbon footprints and mitigating climate change, as well as improving human health.”
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Driven to help the world make this shift to a plant-based diet is the organization, the Plant-Based Treaty. The platform offers classes, educational resources, petitions, and action steps that individuals, organizations, cities, and governments can take to fuel the plant-based movement to reduce climate change through the three rs.
You’ve heard of reduce, reuse, and recycle, but what about the other three rs? Relinquish. Redirect. Restore. These principles are at the root of the Plant Based Treaty, a movement for actions to be taken to improve our food systems to be better for the planet. Intertwined with the three rs are actions that restore soil, land, and biodiversity by relinquishing actions of soil degradation and redirecting agriculture to regenerative methods. This movement connects individuals with actions they can take, such as adopting more vegan meals, or their governments can take, but promoting plant-based and regenerative agriculture into their infrastructure.
To date, 26 cities, 146,000 individuals, 1,810 businesses, and 1,400 organizations have signed the treaty. And, if you’re wondering, ‘yes’ The Wellness Feed is one of them. To learn more about how we can put our best plant-based foot forward and to share with readers more about this exciting organization, Anita Krajnc, the campaign coordinator of the Plant Based Treaty, shares her insight on the mission, why plant-based is good for the planet, and her vegan journey.
In your words, what is the Plant Based Treaty?
Launched in 2021, the Plant Based Treaty is a grassroots campaign which aims to put food systems, the role of animal agriculture, and the benefits of implementing plant-based solutions at the heart of tackling the climate crisis. The campaign seeks to get endorsements from individuals, groups, businesses, and cities to put pressure on national governments to negotiate an international Plant Based Treaty as a companion to the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.
Centering our currently unsustainable food system and promoting a shift to a sustainable plant-based food system can halt the widespread degradation of critical ecosystems caused by animal agriculture. This can also actively help reverse the damage already done to planetary functions, ecosystems, and biodiversity.
The Treaty has three core principles known as the 3 Rs:
Relinquish: No land use change, ecosystem degradation or deforestation for animal agriculture.
Redirect: An active transition away from an animal-based food system to a plant-based system.
Restore: Actively restoring key ecosystems, particularly restoring forests and rewilding landscapes.
What are your goals for 2030?
We are aiming to work with at least 10 cities per year to develop plant-based food strategies in their climate action plans following an endorsement of the Plant Based Treaty. We also hope to continue relationships with cities with existing endorsements to encourage them to do more to increase accessibility to plant-based food.
One of our campaigns is to introduce plant-based milk by default into universities, schools, hospitals, and cafes as part of the overall strategy to change ten institutions per year.
With our global climate talks program, we aim to become more influential at the climate conferences we attend, particularly the COPs where we already have UN observer status, deliver more press conferences, and hold more side events in order to influence policy decisions at a global level.
How do you respond to those who don’t believe that a plant-based diet can help reverse climate change?
The science is clear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that a shift towards plant-based diets can significantly reduce food related greenhouse gas emissions. An Oxford University study calculated that large changes in the food system is crucial in order to meet our climate goals, and that adopting a plant-based diet on a global scale could reduce food emissions by as much as 70%. Oxford University’s Joseph Poore stated, “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.” Independent policy institute, Chatham House, observed that ‘shifting global demand for meat and dairy produce is central to achieving climate goals.’
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Even if we phase out fossil fuels now, emissions from our food system alone are enough to put the 1.5ºC and 2.0°C targets out of reach. The global food system is the single largest GHG emitting sector in the world responsible for more than a third of global GHG emissions.
Animal agriculture is ‘responsible for around 66% of all food’s annual emissions, yet provides only 18% of calories’ – Johan Falk, 2020
In your opinion do you think that animal agriculture can play a positive role if society moves towards being predominantly plant-based?
The animal agriculture industry is perpetuating a myth that grazing cattle can offset greenhouse gas emissions by stimulating soil to absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, a process known as soil carbon sequestration.
As shown in the Oxford University report, Grazed and Confused, cows fed on grass release more greenhouse gas emissions than they can offset through soil carbon sequestration. In the very best cases, carbon sequestration amounted to 60% of the greenhouse gases the animals on the land emit.
Half of Earth’s habitable land is used for agriculture and 83% of global agricultural land is used to farm animals yet supplies just 18% of calories. Switching to “regenerative” animal farming would require more land than intensive farming.
A review of more than 100 studies found that when farmed animals are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of plants and almost all groups of wild mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and fish in the rivers increase. Additionally, “regenerative” animal agriculture as a climate solution ignores the methane emergency.
So the answer is no, in my opinion animal agriculture doesn’t play a positive role at all, ethics aside, even if society does move towards being predominantly plant-based.
How did you go plant-based? Do you have any advice for people wanting to make the change?
I went vegetarian in the 1990s after watching the British documentary The Animals and went vegan in 2005 after being pushed to consider the veal industry’s relationship to milk by a student animal rights group at Queen’s University where I was taught. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. My advice to people is to watch documentaries like Earthlings, Dominion, Mother’s Milk and Eating our Way to Extinction – all free on YouTube or Netflix documentaries like Game Changers, Seaspiracy, Forks over Knives and What the Health.
I also urge you to join an animal vigil in front of a slaughterhouse with the Animal Save Movement. Bearing witness and not turning away from animal victims is a moral duty we all share and is rewarding in the sense that it is life transformative.
How can our readers become involved in the Plant-Based Treaty?
We love new people to get involved with our organization. We have an ‘Act Now’ section on our website where people can find a whole host of online resources and actions such as emailing your local council member inviting them to endorse the treaty. We also have video trainings and recorded webinars on our YouTube channel where people can learn how to participate in university or city campaigns. And, we are active on all the major social media platforms so please follow us to learn more about what we’re getting up to.