Looking back one month after the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP), a British charity says that COP30 failed to protect animals and the food system.
World Animal Protection has critiqued how COP30 failed to acknowledge the role of industrial animal agriculture in the worsening climate crisis, or how factory farming contributes to an increasingly unsustainable and inequitable food system.
Read more: Examination Finds Over 300 industrial Agriculture Lobbyists Participated In COP30 climate talks
COP30 took place in Belém,Brazil,at the mouth of the Amazon River and next to the Amazon rainforest. According to the WWF, cattle ranching – Brazil’s most prevalent form of animal agriculture – is the “number one culprit” behind deforestation in the Amazon region. It accounts for approximately 80 percent of all deforestation.
In a statement sent to Plant Based News (PBN), Kelly Dent, the director of external engagement for World Animal Protection, said, “For a COP hosted in the Amazon, it’s shattering that deforestation took a back seat. The wildlife,indigenous people,and traditional communities who call the forest their home deserved better than this.”
‘Equitable, humane, and sustainable farming practices must replace the destructive industrial agriculture model’
Dent, who attended COP30, also said, “The Belém Political Package falls short of what animals, people, and planet need to thrive. It fails to acknowledge that agriculture is the major driver of deforestation, and that cutting down our forests is supercharging emissions.”
Animal agriculture is the leading global cause of climate change, surpassing the burning of fossil fuels and causing 53 percent of average global temperature rise between 1750 and 2020. A new
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