The United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP28), which is being held these days in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), has for the first time dedicated an entire day to addressing food and its environmental impact. He has also put attendees on a diet, with a menu made up of two-thirds vegan or vegetarian foods.
These last foods are one of the protagonists. Different organizations, including Madre Brava, Good Food Institute and Jeremy Coller Foundation, have called on companies in the agri-food sector “to accelerate the transition towards a diet based on plant protein,” in the words of Nico Muzi , spokesperson for Madre Brava. “In the European Union and the United States there is an overconsumption of meat and dairy products, which is not healthy for people or the planet,” warns Muzi.
Madre Brava has put her calculations on the table: if 50% of the sales of six large companies in the sector, among which are five supermarket chains (Lidl, Tesco, Carrefour, CP All and Delhaize) and a catering company (Sodexo), were vegetable protein products instead of animal protein, in one year greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 25 million vehicles off the road in the European Union would be avoided.
Francesc Reguant, president of the agri-food economics commission of the Col legi d’Economistes de Catalunya, makes a triple warning in this regard. Although it recognizes that in the richest countries there is an excess of consumption of meat and dairy products, it urges us to take into account the nutritional properties of foods and remembers that processed products that imitate animal protein are, today, much more expensive and that their production is not free of environmental costs either. The economist also warns of the negative consequences that the reduction in meat and dairy consumption would have on the economy of Catalonia, where the livestock sector, especially pork, has an important weight.
Beyond this call to action to eat more plant-based protein, the most significant agreement of COP28 so far is the signature, by the 134 countries that produce 75% of greenhouse gas emissions from of food, from the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action. To the declaration we must add a document of global dietary recommendations presented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
It is estimated that agri-food systems, which range from agricultural and livestock production to food manufacturing and transportation, consume 15% of fossil fuels and are responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity. Throughout COP28, companies in the sector have taken the opportunity to show the world their progress in reducing carbon emissions thanks, above all, to the implementation of renewable energies and technology for process optimization. Another of the main protagonists has been regenerative agriculture, which converts the soil into a carbon sink.
