40 MEPs have signed the following statement of support for the Million Dollar Vegan campaign, which encourages people to fight climate change with diet change by going vegan for Lent.
“The non-profit campaign Million Dollar Vegan along with 12-year-old activist Genesis Butler is asking people worldwide to fight climate change and protect the environment by going vegan for the 40-day-period of Lent.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5 percent of all global, human-caused greenhouse gas emissions1 – which makes it the second highest source of emissions and greater than fuel emissions from all the world’s cars, trains, ships, and planes combined.
Climate change is one of the most pressing topics of our time. A recent assessment by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it is necessary and even vital to maintain the global temperature increase below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which is on the more ambitious end of the Paris Climate Agreement, which suggested global temperature rise should be well below 2°C. To achieve the objectives, the IPCC concludes it would “require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society“.2
Research published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in 2018 found that in order to cut global emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, it is going to be imperative that the livestock sector limit their emissions, as taken together, “the top 20 meat and dairy industry emitters produce more emissions than many OECD countries“.3
While 83% of farmland is currently being taken up by animal agriculture, it provides only 18% of our calories – therefore being a more inefficient way to produce food to feel a growing population, according to the most comprehensive analysis to date on the impact of livestock on our planet.4 For these reasons researchers at Oxford University recently stated that the “single biggest thing anyone can do to help the planet“ is to choose a plant-based diet.5
Abstaining from animal products for the 40-day-period of Lent, or for any other occasion, makes a difference for the planet and the footprint we each leave on the Earth. If every person went vegan for Lent, it will be the equivalent to the whole of Germany not emitting CO2 for a year.6
We, the undersigned Members of the European Parliament, express our concern about the danger of climate change and environment destruction. We therefore support Million Dollar Vegan and Genesis Butler’s attempts to raise awareness for this issue and fight climate change with diet change.
It is time for solutions. Climate change will impact every country, person and ecosystem on the planet.
We need to act now – everybody is able to positively contribute to being a part of the solution.”
Yours sincerely,
Stefan Eck / GUE/NGL / Germany
Dr. Klaus Buchner / Greens/EFA / Germany
Martina Michels / GUE/NGL / Germany
Tilly Metz / Greens/EFA / Luxembourg
Lola Sánchez / GUE/NGL / Spain
Miguel Urbán / GUE/NGL / Spain
Xabier Benito / GUE/NGL / Spain
Tania González / GUE/NGL / Spain
Barbara Spinelli / GUE/NGL / Italy
Merja Kyllönen / GUE/NGL / Finland
John Flack / ECR / UK
Pavel Poc / S&D / Czech Republic
Jeppe Kofod / S&D / Denmark
Georges Bach / EVP / Luxembourg
Marisa Matias / GUE/NGL / Portugal
Neoklis Sylikiotis / GUE/NGL / Cyprus
Indrek Tarand / Greens/EFA / Estonia
Jiří Maštálka / GUE/NGL / Czech Republic
Ángela Vallina / GUE/NGL / Spain
Martin Sonneborn / GUE/NGL / Spain
Gabi Zimmer / NI / Germany
Kateřina Konečná / GUE/NGL / Czech Republic
Anja Hazekamp / GUE/NGL / Netherlands
Cornelia Ernst / GUE/NGL / Germany
Helmut Scholz / GUE/NGL / Germany
Florent Marcellesi / Greens/EFA / Spain
Isabella De Monte / S&D / Italy
Thomas Waitz / Greens/EFA / Austria
Catherine Bearder / ALDE/ UK
Dimitris Papadimoulis / GUE/NGL / Greece
Younous Omarjee / GUE/NGL / France
Knut Fleckenstein / S&D / Germany
Malin Björk / GUE/NGL / Sweden
Julia Reda / Greens/EFA / Germany
Takis Hadjigeorgiou / GUE/NGL / Cyprus
Tamás Meszerics / Greens/EFA / Hungary
Javier Couso / GUE/NGL / Spain
Eleonora Evi / EFDD / Italy
Arne Gericke / ECR / Germany
Marco Zullo / EFDD / Italy
1 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ‘Tackling climate change through livestock: a global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities’, 2013 [www.fao.org/3/a-i3437e.pdf]
2 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C approved by governments’, 2018 [https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/]
3 GRAIN, ‘Emissions impossible: How big meat and dairy are heating up the planet’, 2018 [www.grain.org/article/entries/5976-emissions-impossible-how-big-meat-and-dairy-are-heating-up-theplanet]
4 Poore1, T. Nemecek, ‘Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers’, 2018 [https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf]
5 D. Carrington, ‘Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth’, 2018 [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth]
6 Figures provided by Joseph Poore of Oxford University
