What comes next? Sign the Plant Based Treaty

Guest Blog by Anita Krajnc, Global Campaign Coordinator for Plant Based Treaty

We are in a planetary emergency. Fossil fuels and animal agriculture are key drivers of the climate crisis. The animal agriculture industry is devastating our oceans, forests, and biodiversity as well as causing untold animal suffering. ​​The Plant Based Treaty offers a logical pathway to a plant-based world by calling on powerful governments to establish a global treaty and to galvanise action by every person, group, organisation, and city. 

A grassroots campaign to save the planet

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. 

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 switching to plant-based foods. According to the IPCC 6th assessment report, we need to swiftly address methane levels, and we believe the Plant Based Treaty can contribute to the methane agreement that scientists are calling for. 

The core principles of the plant-based treaty 

As a companion to the Paris Climate Agreement, we are urging governments to negotiate a global treaty which will include the following 3 R principles:

1. Relinquish: the animal agriculture industry cannot continue to expand and deforest the earth.
2. Redirect: promote a radical shift to plant-based food systems away from animal agriculture.
3. Restore: heal key ecosystems and reforest the Earth.

We are inviting you to take action 

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 negotiate vital changes in our food system. 

We need diet change and plant-based food system change. Individual and system change work together. That’s what the treaty does through guides and resources for individuals, groups, businesses,cities, and other actors to play their part. Whether you are acting alone or as part of a climate action group, school, hospital, business, or city, you can be part of a growing do-it-together movement forging change and helping build a liveable future.

Eat plants. Plant trees.

We need diet change, not climate change.

Please endorse the Plant Based Treaty today!