Plant Based Treaty has partnered with local vegan cafe Veganist Sharm to distribute hundreds of free vegan burgers in the Green Zone to hungry COP27 delegates looking for healthy, climate-friendly meals. On Friday, November 11, Nilgün Engin and her team distributed 300 burgers in less than two hours and due to popular demand, planned to return the following Monday with 400 more.
Nilgün Engin, Plant Based Treaty campaigner says, “The scarcity of plant-based food options at COP27 is astonishing given we are at a climate summit. A third of greenhouse gas emissions come from food and COP27 should be showcasing climate-friendly plant-based food solutions rather than being part of the problem.”
There are barely any climate-friendly, plant-based meal offerings at the climate conference. The COP27 menu features beef, chicken, fish and dairy products.
Yael Gabay, Plant Based Treaty’s global coordinator, says, “Governments are sitting here chewing on meat while food emissions are killing the planet. There is the odious smell of meat when you enter the Blue Zone where all the government delegates are! We are fighting for the right to breathe. The answer to the climate crisis is on our plate.”
The Plant Based Treaty has three core principles to (1) relinquish the expansion of animal agriculture, (2) promote a shift to healthy sustainable plant-based diets through public education and redirecting subsidies and taxation, and (3) reforest and rewild the Earth and restore carbon sinks to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Governments are being urged to support food justice, help farmers in a just transition to plant-based agroecological agriculture and rewild the Earth so we can live safely and ethically within our planetary boundaries.
To learn more about the Plant Based Treaty and how you can endorse it as an individual, a business/organisation or a city, visit their website here.
