ProVeg International is the only organisation at COP23 raising awareness of food sector strategies that can be instrumental in climate change mitigation, while simultaneously delivering important health and sustainable development co-benefits.

Demand for meat has a huge and devastating impact on the environment and is one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change, responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is also a major threat for global food security, water availability, and biodiversity.

This means that shifts in the way we produce and consume our food have enormous potential to have a dramatic eff ect on emissions, climate change, and food security.

We are here to increase the visibility of the opportunities within the food and livestock sectors for climate change mitigation. Opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the livestock sector exist across all regions. It is one of the most powerful and eff ective ways we can achieve our climate targets
and keep global warming below 2⁰C, yet it is currently not being discussed by world leaders and policy makers. This has to change.

We are calling for animal agriculture to be a central part of climate talks and are here to deliver a petition to German State Secretary for the Environment Jochen Flasbarth calling for animal agriculture to be recognised as a priority for reducing near-term global warming and that it is discussed at COP23 and
included in climate protection strategies at the national level.

 Without significant dietary shifts, food-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 would use half of the total emissions budget imposed by the 2°C target and could exceed it by 2070.

  Meat-eaters are responsible for double the amount of greenhouse gas emissions compared to plant-based eaters.

 In the European Union, halving the consumption of animal products would achieve a 25 to 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

 Global food-related emissions could be reduced by up 70% by 2050, if everyone ate plant-based food.

 We currently produce enough food globally to feed 11 billion people, but over 50% of crops we grow are fed to animals raised for meat.

 Meat-based diets require 18-times more land than plantbased diets and uses 33% of the world’s fresh water.