This week, Geneva’s Green Party decided to ban its representatives from eating meat on environmental grounds and to deflect accusations of hypocrisy. However, the decision has divided the party, reported the newspaper Le Matin.

The party met to hold a vote on the ban, but the issue was so divisive the party watered down the wording at a later meeting.
The new wording requires party representatives to adopt a low meat diet during plenary meetings, work gatherings, official meals or any setting where an individual is representing the party. The final wording which found favour with 53 members, was rejected by 45, with 16 members abstaining.
Some defended the anti-meat rule, arguing that it reflected the urgency of climate change and the responsibility of the Green Party to act. However, others described the idea as dictatorial. Christian Bavarel told the newspaper Le Temps that if we’re able to dictate what we can be eaten and drunk then we can decide what people wear and think.
Given the degree of division in the party on the issue it has decided to vote on the issue again at its general assembly meeting on 11 June 2022.
The hypocrisy of environmental champions feasting on meat is not new. In 2012, in a Washington Post article, Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton, and Frances Kissling, an ethics consultant, describe how they asked the event organisers of a sustainable development conference in Rio focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions what was on the lunch menu. To their surprise they found much meat.
A U.N. report entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, shows how livestock are one of the top two or three most significant contributors to greenhouse gases. In another, climate researchers Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang estimate that livestock account for 51% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Over the course of history humans agriculture has reduced forests by a third and wild shrub and grasslands by nearly two thirds. Animal grazing now consumes 31% of the Earth’s arable land, and crops, more than a third of which are fed to livestock, consume 15%, according to Our World in Data. By comparison, urban and built up land consumes only 1%. Another calculation shows that livestock (meat and dairy) take up 77% of habitable land but only supply 18% of calories.
Unlike changing home heating, eating more plants and less meat is a relatively quick cost-free way to cut emissions.
Why the representatives of a party defined by environmental preservation would fail to voluntarily adjust their eating habits in favour of the environment and resist a rule banning it certain setting will be the central question for many.
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Le Matin article (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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ELISABETH BELCHAMBER says
I a, certainly not a “meat every day” eater but I would never agree to such a ruling by a political party.
Tom Morrison says
You say above that “A U.N. report entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, shows how livestock are one of the top two or three most significant contributors to greenhouse gases.”
That report by the FAO was superseded by a later FAO report saying those figures were wrong. They presented new figures of total life cycle emissions which showed that livestock produce far fewer GHGs.
FAO apologised. You should too, not only to me but to your readers
Le News says
Thank you for your comment. There are many ways to calculate GHG emissions from livestock. Livestock’s Long Shadow was criticised from both sides. Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, two World Bank employees, thought the emissions share of 18% in Livestock’s Long Shadow was far too low. They came up with a figure of 51%. An inconsistency in how emissions for transport (they took a figure from the IPCC that was less comprehensive) and livestock were calculated in Livestock’s Long Shadow was acknowledged. But the revised FAO figure (14.5%) is also controversial because of the way it is calculated and involvement from the meat and dairy industries. For example it does not include the impact of converting tropical forest to pasture or any other land change to accommodate grazing animals. None of these calculations are perfect and politics and lobbying muddy the waters. For completeness, here is the 51% calculation: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6704/c7a0777c82357704d82b9ae8007c1197cb07.pdf Here is the 14.5% calculation: https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf And here is a NYT article that describes some of the politics involved: https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf