news
From Desmog
Summary
- The meat and dairy industry has successfully lobbied against key EU climate policies aimed at reducing the sector’s impact on climate change.
- The industry relied on tactics to downplay its contribution to climate change and emphasize the importance of livestock in people’s diets and the economy.
- Powerful trade associations, such as COPA-COGECA and UECBV, have been more engaged in opposing climate policies than their member companies, hindering the transition to more sustainable diets and land use practices.
- Companies like Unilever and Nestlé have shown more positive engagement with climate policies, in contrast to the negative stance taken by meat and dairy producers.
Intense lobbying from the meat and dairy industry since 2020 has helped weaken and stall crucial climate policies in the European Union, according to a new report from InfluenceMap.
For the past three years, agricultural industry associations such as farmers’ union COPA-COGECA, European Livestock Voice, and the European Livestock and Meat Trades Union (UECBV) have spearheaded the pushback against six key EU climate policies, alongside meat and dairy companies such as Cargill, Arla, and Vion.
The report, published on 29 May by InfluenceMap, a think tank that analyses the impact of business and finance on climate change, found that the livestock industry had “largely succeeded” in weakening EU policies, which were designed to slash the climate impact of the meat and dairy sector.
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