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Heather Mills joined climate activists protesting at the Bonn Climate Conference earlier today and called on officials to sign a global plant-based treaty to save the environment.
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According to a statement sent to Plant Based News (PBN) by Plant Based Treaty, Mills led the gathered protestors in several chants within the dining area, including “If you care about the climate, eat vegan for your lunch,” and “Food system change now, sign the Plant Based Treaty.”
The Bonn Climate Conference takes place at the halfway point to COP29 (the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference), and delegates from 198 countries – around 6,000 people – are meeting in Bonn, Germany, this week to discuss climate policies, pressing environmental issues, and lay the groundwork for the next COP.
‘Everyone can make a massive difference’
Mills is part of a delegation of environmental campaigners who came to the Bonn Climate Conference to call for a combination of individual, citywide, nationwide, and international action to transition away from animal agriculture and toward plant-based foods, including at climate summits themselves.
She plans to meet with COP29 organizers to discuss “a pathway” to 100 percent plant-based catering at future climate conferences, something that 18,000 petitioners support. Lia Phillips, a UK city campaigner for the Plant Based Treaty, previously described serving meat and dairy at climate conventions as “akin to serving cigarettes” at health conferences.
“Everyone can make a massive difference right now, just by choosing to eat vegan. It’s proven to be better for the planet, for the animals and it’s better for our health,” said Mills. “Climate Conferences like Bonn and the upcoming COP29 can do better, by serving only plant-based food. They should be showcasing the very best in sustainability.”
Read more: Hundreds Of Climate Scientists Predict Global Heating Of At Least 2.5C
Food system transformation or ‘climate catastrophe’
While there is an increasing public acknowledgment of the significant impact of animal-derived foods on the environment, human health, and animals – including from prominent figures like the World Health Organization’s Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – an overhaul of the global food system has been notably absent from the last 30 years of COP events.
“Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General gave a great speech yesterday but why is he not talking about the real issue,” said Mills, in direct response to Guterres’ special address for World Environment Day. “Production of meat, fish and dairy which like fossil fuels is a huge contributor of CO2, it’s bigger than the whole transport sector.”
The Plant Based Treaty launched in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow. It’s an international treaty that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from animal agriculture. Thirty cities endorse the treaty, including Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and Belfast, and around 150,000 individual endorsers, Nobel laureates, and IPCC scientists also support it.
“Plant Based Treaty has presented a pathway that world leaders could attach to the Paris Agreement,” said Phillips. “The science says that even if we ended fossil fuels we are destined for a climate catastrophe if we don’t transform the food system.”
An analysis of various UK diets published in Nature Food last year linked animal-based foods with environmental degradation via excessive GHG emissions, land use, water use, eutrophication (which causes algae blooms), and harm to biodiversity. In contrast, transitioning from meat and dairy to plant-based foods minimizes these harms.
“We need to do this now,” added Phillips, noting that a plant-based food system could address food insecurity, biodiversity loss, food-related disease, and the risk of pandemics.
