Listening back: How have the realities of COP26 stacked up against the pre-conference hopes, insights, and predictions of Ctrl-Alt-Meat guests?

The 2021 UN Climate Conference (COP26) has now, officially, drawn to a conclusion. Over the course of the two-week summit, the city of Glasgow saw many a world leader come and go, and a wide variety of grand announcements, promises, and commitments from the public and private sectors alike. The question now on everyone’s lips will be, was it all a success? Will this conference’s headline announcements be enough to put us back on track toward meeting the Paris climate goals? What issues have dominated and, critically, which have been overlooked?

To address some of these questions, we’re listening back to three key episodes of Ctrl-Alt-Meat and exploring, with the benefit of hindsight, how the hopes, insights, and predictions of our expert guests have stacked up against the realities of COP26.

Episode 12: Dr. Helena Wright, Policy Director, FAIRR Initiative

“I think it’s really important to consider biodiversity alongside climate change. Both climate stability and biodiversity are really important for preservation of the ecosystems that we rely on for life, and actually there’s some research showing that climate change is actually just one of the nine planetary boundaries that we need to consider. So that’s why there’s been a lot of calls this year for climate and biodiversity to both be considered together, and I think we’ll see that on the agenda at COP26 as well, with nature coming higher up the agenda.”

On Episode 12 of Ctrl-Alt-Meat, Coller Foundation Policy Director Dr. Helena Wright spoke on the need to consider climate change and biodiversity in tandem, and predicted that more attention and discussion time would be devoted to nature than at previous conferences. Now looking back, we can say that nature and biodiversity have made more of an appearance at this year’s COP than in previous years. The 6th of November was designated ‘Nature and Land Use Day’, allowing for a wide variety of panels and events to discuss and raise questions around the interdependence of climate and biodiversity, including a high-level event on agricultural innovation.

There were also a number of notable announcements on this front, with more than 100 countries coming together to agree a deal to end deforestation, a key cause of biodiversity loss, by 2030. In the UK, 95 major businesses also committed to achieving long-term ‘net positivity’ for nature. Overall, however, with even the deforestation deal criticised by some for lacking detail on enforcement, on biodiversity COP has seen far more in the way of words than concrete commitments. Hope remains on the horizon however, with nations due to reconvene in China next spring for the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), where a ten-year framework to reverse nature-loss is set to be discussed.

Listen to Helena’s episode in full here. If you’re interested in Biodiversity, also listen to Episode 15: Carl Safina.

Episode 5: Jim Mellon, British Businessman and Philanthropist

“The cell-ag meat is much better than eating the supposedly ‘real’ stuff, because it doesn’t have any hormones or antibiotics — because it doesn’t have any capacity to make you sick from contamination. It is, in every respect — no waste, no environmental destruction — better for the planet. Just in the last couple of days, there’s been huge amounts of attention put on to COP26 and the environmental damage that global warming is producing. This is the solution, at least in part.”

In Episode 5, businessman & investor Jim Mellon presented a strikingly optimistic vision for where things were heading, highlighting the role that “cell-ag” or ‘cultured’ meat can play in addressing the climate crisis. ‘Cultured meat’ is meat which has been grown in a lab, produced without the need for a live animal to be killed. The first cultured meat products went on sale in 2020, and production methods are projected to grow increasingly scalable and affordable over the coming years. It also has a far lower environmental impact than traditional meat production, prompting many to call for governments to subsidise and support the development of this industry at COP26.

COP26 may be the first COP where the topic was mentioned in a high level event, with the Minister of UAE, Mariam Almheiri, mentioning on Nature Day the importance of agricultural innovation including cellular agriculture. There has, however, been very little announced on this front at COP26 in the way of concrete commitments, with the benefits of alt-proteins seemingly lost on global governments who have up to this point provided just 1% of the total financial support received by the sector to date. Outside the conference meanwhile , pressure was building, with The Good Food Institute posting billboards around Glasgow highlighting the importance of the issue, and broader calls for a shift toward alternative proteins making themselves a regular feature in the protests that accompanied the conference. With many arguing that public sector buy-in will be critical to ensuring that cultured meat is able to make an impact in time, it will now fall to individual governments up their game on alt-protein.

Listen to Jim’s episode in full here. For more on alternative proteins, also listen to Episode 1: Ethan Brown.

Episode 13: Andrew Wasley, Investigative Journalist, Bureau of Investigative Journalism

“There is a lot of concern that despite the rhetoric, despite the spin around this, the role of livestock production and intensive farming, and its contribution to the climate crisis, may still not get the airing it needs because it is a big, big issue, particularly when it comes to the sort of deforestation footprint of commodities such as soya and beef. I think that that area, if things are going to be successful, really does need some attention.”

Journalist Andrew Wasley, speaking on Episode 13 of Ctrl-Alt-Meat echoed a concern expressed by many in the leadup to the conference — that the issue of animal agriculture would remain largely overlooked. Animal farming accounts for an estimated 16.5% of all global emissions, and almost 60% of all food production emissions, yet this area is all too often overlooked by governments around the world. On this front, COP26 has not proven to be an exception to the rule, and while agriculture more broadly has found its way onto the agenda, there has been a tangible reluctance to refer directly to livestock or meat.

Despite this, there are reasons for optimism. Agriculture, for example, has been included as part of the COP26 ‘Breakthrough Agenda’, with 40 nations including the UK, US, India, and China committing to ensuring that “climate-resilient, sustainable agriculture is the most attractive and widely adopted option for farmers everywhere by 2030”. COP also saw 90 nations join a USA and EU led pact to reduce methane emissions by 30% before 2030. While these are admittedly not the most substantive commitments, what they do signal is that, at long last, agriculture is being recognised as a key driver of pollution. The world is waking up to this inconvenient truth. The question is, will it wake up fast enough?

Listen to Andrews’s episode in full here. For more on factory farming and animal welfare, also listen to Episode 14: Alice Di Concietto .