Plant-Based Treaty puts animal agriculture at the forefront as IPCC releases its 6th assessment report
Media Contact: media@plantbasedtreaty.org
The key findings of IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report make clear we have a slim chance of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We must limit fossil fuels and deforestation and need rapid, strong, sustained reduction of greenhouse gases. World to hit temperature tipping point 19 years faster than forecast. The planet will reach 1.5C degrees warming a decade early. Unless we rapidly reduce emissions, 3C of heating is likely. If they don’t fall at all we are on track for 4–5C, which is apocalypse territory. Scientists warn the collapse of major Atlantic currents, ice caps, and the Amazon Rainforest “cannot be ruled out.”
“This report makes it clear that rapid, strong, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gases are needed now. We cannot wait two, five, or ten years. It has to be done now. We need to transform to a plant-based food system as a matter of urgency if we are to reduce methane to safe levels and slow global warming,” says Nicola Harris, director of communications at Plant-Based Treaty.
“While carbon dioxide is the dominant gas, stronger reductions in methane are critical. The Plant-Based Treaty (along with the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty) provides a logical pathway to the solutions needed now,” adds Anita Krajnc, campaign coordinator for the Plant-Based Treaty.
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Background on the Global Plant Based Treaty
We are in a planetary emergency. Fossil fuels and animal agriculture are drivers of the climate crisis. Animal agriculture is also devastating other planetary boundaries like the oceans, forests, and biodiversity and causing untold animal exploitation. The Plant-Based Treaty offers a logical pathway to a plant-based world by focusing on powerful governments to set up a global treaty while facilitating actions on the part of all actors, from individuals, groups, businesses, and cities, along the way.
Modeled on the popular Fossil Fuel Treaty, the Plant-Based Treaty initiative is a grassroots campaign designed to put food systems at the forefront of combatting the climate crisis.
Three greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are at record highs and accelerating, leading us towards a climate catastrophe unless we turn this ship around. Everyone has to do everything and we have to do it now.
Scientists warn methane reductions are probably the only way of staving off a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise. Cutting carbon dioxide is not enough to solve the climate crisis — the world must act quickly on methane and switch to plant-based food. According to the IPCC 6th assessment report, we need to swiftly address methane, and we believe the Plant-Based Treaty can contribute to the methane agreement that scientists are calling for.
As a companion to the Paris Climate Agreement, we are urging governments to negotiate a global treaty that will include the following 3 R principles:
- Relinquish: the animal agriculture industry cannot continue to expand and deforest the earth.
- Redirect: promote a radical shift to plant-based food systems away from animal agriculture.
- Restore: heal key ecosystems and reforest the Earth.
We are depending on bottom-up, people power. We are inviting 10 million individuals, 10,000 organizations, 10,000 businesses, and 50 cities by 2023 to endorse the call to action and put pressure on national governments to negotiate an international Plant-Based Treaty. We hope that national governments see the support behind the values and principles of the Plant-Based Treaty campaign and use it as inspiration to start to negotiate vital changes in our food system.
Eat plants. Plant trees.
We need diet change, not climate change.
