What is the Plant Based Treaty?

The adoption of a Plant Based Treaty as a companion to the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement will put food systems at the heart of combating the climate crisis. The Treaty aims to halt the widespread degradation of critical ecosystems caused by animal agriculture, to promote a shift to more healthy, sustainable plant-based diets and to actively reverse damage done to planetary functions, ecosystem services and biodiversity.

The Plant Based Treaty has three core principles:

Relinquish

No land use change, ecosystem degradation or deforestation for animal agriculture

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Redirect

An active transition away from animal-based food systems to plant-based systems

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Restore

Actively restoring key ecosystems, particularly restoring forests and rewilding landscapes

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INDIVIDUAL ENDORSERS

ORGANIZATION ENDORSERS

BUSINESS ENDORSERS

CITY & STATE ENDORSERS

Why do we need a Plant Based Treaty?

Fossil fuels and animal agriculture are the driving force behind runaway global warming as well as extensive biodiversity loss, large-scale deforestation, species extinction, water depletion, soil degradation and ocean dead zones. Addressing fossil fuels alone isn’t enough – we need action on food systems too; that’s where the Plant Based Treaty comes in. The three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are at devastatingly high levels and rapidly accelerating.

Animal agriculture is driving Indigenous land theft in the Amazon; subjecting racially and ethnically marginalized communities to disproportionate amounts of toxic waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses as well as exposing workers to toxic chemicals, hazardous working conditions and severe trauma.

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Plant Based Treaty Endorsers

“To know if someone really wants to fight for justice, you have to see what they eat.”

Jesusa Rodríguez

Senator, Mexico

Plant Based Treaty Endorsers

“We believe in justice for animals, the environment and people. That’s why we support the Plant Based Treaty and urge individuals and governments to sign it.”

Paul, Mary & Stella McCartney

Plant Based Treaty Endorsers

“I endorse the Plant Based Treaty because it addresses the single largest sources of GHG emissions in a two-pronged manner that parallels exactly what needs to be done with regard to fossil fuel emissions: freezing further development, and unwinding existing intensive industrial systems that produce cheap meat and dairy at the expense of enormous animal suffering.”

Danny Harvey

IPCC Lead Author on the 4th and 5th Assessment Reports, Working Group III.