On Monday, 21 February, ProVeg International and 154 partners from civil society sent a letter to Inger Andersen (UNEP) and HE Espen Barth Eide (President of UNEA5.2) asking UNEP to take a stronger lead in promoting less resource-intensive diets, especially following the COP commitments on methane and deforestation.

ProVeg advocates for sustainable and less resource-intensive food systems

Ahead of UNEA 5.2, we would like to ask UNEP to join us in advocating for a shift towards more sustainable and less resource-intensive food systems. This would be of particular importance for countries from the Global North. UNEP could, for example, leverage agreements, such as an MoU with the European Union, and organise dedicated roundtables and events at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, including a “Food Day”. The following two actions could initiate such a shift:

• Acknowledging the links between factory farms, environmental destruction, and the increased risks of zoonotic outbreaks. UNEP could establish an action plan to enable an end to industrial animal agriculture in regions with an excessive dependency on animal-based protein and accelerate a shift towards plant-sourced proteins.
• Persuade governments, especially in the Global North, to take food systems and the dietary shift towards increased consumption of plant-based proteins into account when updating their NDCs and climate-mitigation strategies at the UNFCCC in coming years.

Read the joint statement letter to UNEP here.