It has been announced that reducing meat consumption is the one of the United Nation's Food & Agriculture Organization's top goals in coming years, which will be discussed at length at the COP28 summit in Dubai in December. As Agnieszska de Sousa writes in Bloomburg, "nations that over-consume meat will be advised to limit their intake, while developing countries — where under-consumption of meat adds to a prevalent nutrition challenge — will need to improve their livestock farming."
Food systems amount to about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, writes de Sousa. The plan will be non-binding, but the FAO aims to 'give a push" to ensure that many countries are aware of the desired changes, which will ideally impact policy, finance and various climate topics and decisions. As Dhanush Dinesh, the founder of Clim-Eat noted, “If we don’t tackle the livestock problem, we are not going to solve climate change. The key problem is overconsumption.”
In addition to attempting to reduce meat consumption for environmental purposes, another aim is to help to support and better encourage farmers across the globe, as well as placing a focus on sustainability at large.
Other topics involve water usage in farming, food waste, fertilizer and pesticide use and more; the plan will be shared in installments over the coming years. Catering for the event will be 2/3 plant-based, effectively putting the ethos of the summit into effect.
