A new report from the Changing Markets Foundation outlining the climate actions of meat and dairy companies reads like a catalogue of deceit… and a recipe for catastrophe.
From influencers claiming that dairy milk reduces emissions to lobby groups fearmongering about green policies, the report exposes the dangerous deception of animal agriculture.
Following an 18-month collaboration that involved 15 investigative journalists and researchers, the report brings together comprehensive findings from the US, EU, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, UK, and Italy.
It is “a stunning exposé of Big Meat and Dairy tactics,” according to Dr Paul Behrens, Associate Professor of Environmental Change at Leiden University, which reveals how “industry manipulates the price and types of food we eat.”
Big Meat’s deceit
It is not exactly a revelation that meat and dairy are failing in their climate responsibilities.
Animal agriculture causes at least 16.5% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making the transition to a plant-based food system a top global priority.
Yet, corporate interests still prevail. A recent report by Nicholas Carter for the Freedom Food Alliance (FFA) evidenced the “deny, derail, delay, deflect and distract” tactics used by animal ag companies.
Meat and dairy companies are “The New Merchants of Doubt,” as the Changing Markets Foundation’s report puts it.
These climate-wrecking industries have borrowed the playbook of fossil fuel and tobacco companies to distract, delay, and derail climate action. And through it all, the media is facilitating the skulduggery by failing to tell the full climate story.
Meat and dairy downplay their climate impact
Big Meat and Dairy are using every trick in the book to “convince policymakers of agricultural exceptionalism and downplay their climate impact,” the report notes.
The evidence is damning. JBS, the world’s largest meat company, spends 0.03% of its revenue on its net-zero plan. Only 15 of the 22 Big Meat and Dairy companies even have a net-zero target; not a single one meets UN standards.
Meat and dairy lobbyists are having a direct impact on policy. They derailed ten environmental policies promised in the European Green Deal and New Zealand’s recently scrapped agriculture emissions tax, the report explains.
Alongside such derailment, distraction techniques are rife. Greenwashing and ethics-washing dominate the discourse. From Arla blaming ‘cancel culture’ for Gen-Z not buying cow’s milk to Big Dairy’s 80-year stranglehold on US schools, the money keeps flowing and the climate keeps warming.
In a week when peaceful climate protestors were sentenced to four- and five-year prison terms for organising non-violent civil resistance, the power imbalance seems especially stark.
Big Meat and Dairy are the new merchants of doubt. If allowed to continue, their efforts to distract, delay and derail climate action will ensure everyone’s destruction. ★
Read the report here: The New Merchants of Doubt: How Big Meat and Dairy Avoid Climate Action
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