Big meat and dairy lobbyists turn out in record
numbers at Cop28
Food and agriculture firms have sent three times as
many delegates to the climate summit as last year
The world’s top five meat companies’ emissions are
estimated to be significantly larger than those of the oil firms Shell and BP,
while the dairy industry’s 3.4% contribution to global human-induced emissions
is a higher share than aviation.
Rachel
Sherrington, Clare Carlile and Hazel Healy in Dubai
Sat 9 Dec
2023 04.00 GMT
Lobbyists
from industrial agriculture companies and trade groups have turned out in
record numbers at Cop28, with three times as many delegates representing the
meat and dairy industry as last year.
Representatives
are present from some of the world’s largest agribusiness companies – such as
the meat supplier JBS, the fertiliser giant Nutrien, the food giant Nestlé and
the pesticide company Bayer – as well as powerful industry lobby groups.
Meat and
dairy are particularly well-represented with 120 delegates, but an analysis of
the list of delegates by DeSmog shows that the number of lobbyists representing
the interests of agribusiness more broadly have more than doubled since 2022 to
reach 340.
In
addition, the analysis reveals that more than 100 delegates have travelled to
Dubai as part of country delegations, which grants privileged access to
diplomatic negotiations. This number is up from 10 in 2022.
Meat and
dairy firms in particular are coming under increasing scrutiny due to pollution
from livestock, which emits about a third of the global output of methane, a
short-lived greenhouse gas, the cutting of which is identified as the quickest
route to slowing global heating.
Ben
Lilliston, of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said: “With
greater scrutiny over emissions from meat and dairy companies, it is not
surprising they are stepping up their game to head off any Cop outcome that
might hinder their operations. Even so, a tripling of delegates is alarming –
it drives home the urgent need for reforms that limit corporate influence at UN
climate meetings.”
Meat is not
the only industry under the spotlight. Farmers, retailers and processors also
drive greenhouse emissions by clearing trees, using fossil-fuel-derived
synthetic fertilisers and in transport, packaging and storage.
Karina
Gonçalves David, a small-scale farmer representative from Brazil, is concerned
by the presence of powerful and polluting firms. “If they are inside, they have
an advantage. This place is about solutions to face the climate crisis but the
companies are appropriating it to do lobbying. They are going the opposite
way.”
The world’s top five meat companies’ emissions are
estimated to be significantly larger than those of the oil firms Shell and BP,
while the dairy industry’s 3.4% contribution to global human-induced emissions
is a higher share than aviation.
Outspoken
meat lobby groups are also on the ground in Dubai, including the North American
Meat Institute, which as recently as 2022 claimed the extent of human-made
climate breakdown was “unknown”.
Producers
of pesticides have also turned out in high numbers this year, up 30% compared
with 2022. Together, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and their trade association,
CropLife, which has pushed back against attempts to enact new climate measures,
sent 29 delegates.
The
synthetic fertiliser industry has also had a steep rise in representatives
,with 40 this year, up from 13 in 2022.
Raj Patel,
of the sustainability thinktank IPES-Food, said: “Just as with the influx of
oil lobbyists, industrial agriculture businesses are scared. They have read the
science and they know how much their business has driven the climate crisis.”
Big food
and farming representatives are keen to steer conversations away from dietary
change, which is under discussion at the summit. On Sunday, the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organisation will release the first draft of its plan for achieving
a sustainable global food system, which is expected to call on rich nations to
cut meat consumption.
This
follows the recommendation of the Eat-Lancet Commission, which suggests people
consume no more than 15.7 kg a year. In 2020, the average American consumed
126kg of meat.
Smallholder
farmers are worried they will be sidelined by the power of the agribusiness
lobby. A recent report showed small-scale producers get just 0.3% of
international public climate finance despite producing a third of the world’s
food.
“Family
farmers are already rolling out more diverse and nature-friendly practices,
which the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is needed,” said
Esther Penunia, the secretary general of the Asian Farmers’ Association, an
alliance of organisations representing 13 million family farmers. “Yet our
concerns, and the solutions we are putting forward, are being drowned out. We
struggle for our voices to be heard above the voices of those with more money
and more power.”
Most
corporations, lobby groups and NGOs that attend the Cop climate summits have
“observer” status, but the analysis shows an increase in the number of industry
representatives attending Cop28 with their national governments, making
companies and lobby groups party to diplomatic negotiations.
Participating
as country delegates, says Nusa Urbancic from the Changing Markets Foundation,
means that industry may be perceived more as peers by policymakers who then
give greater credibility to their positions.
In total,
102 industry representatives are in Dubai as part of country delegations, 30%
of the sector’s total. In 2022, they made up less than 6%.
The highest
numbers of agribusiness representatives were brought in by Brazil, with 36
delegates linked mostly to the meat industry. Next in line was Russia, which
handed out 15 passes to people affiliated with fertiliser companies and lobby
groups, followed by Canada, which offered tickets to eight more delegates from
fertiliser firms.
Fabrício
Muriana, from Brazil’s Instituto Regenera, who is attending as an observer with
the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, said: “They are here because they
knew it would be a food Cop. It’s a cynical move because these people are not
even beginning to scratch the surface of reducing harm, let alone addressing
climate. We need stricter criteria on who is coming, and with what intentions.”
Big food
companies have announced a handful of voluntary initiatives at Cop28. One is
the UAE- and US-led Aim for Climate partnership, which has been criticised for
skewing heavily towards techno-fixes and the commercial interests of large
corporations.
At the
summit, six of the world’s largest dairy companies also committed to disclose
their emissions, but fell short of setting targets to cut the sector’s methane
pollution, which accounts for 10% of the global total. Campaigners point out
that the dairy industry has plans to grow by more than 70% in the next decade.
The new
analysis gives only a snapshot of the industrial agriculture sector’s
influence. Agriculture and trade ministers, which fell outside the scope of the
analysis, have been fierce advocates for the interests of agribusiness at UN
events in recent years.
Government
officials from Brazil and Argentina – both big producers of beef – pushed to
water down scientific recommendations about reducing meat-eating in the latest
IPCC report.
The US
agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, a former dairy lobbyist, told industry
groups before Cop28 that the US would use the summit to advocate for its
market-based approach to agricultural policy, which shuns calls for regulation
of industries such as meat and dairy.
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