Sir Paul McCartney has urged COP30 organisers not to serve meat at the climate change conference.
Sir Paul McCartney has questioned the decision to serve meat at the COP30 climate change conference
The Beatles legend – a prominent vegetarian and animal rights activist – has written an open letter on behalf of animal rights group PETA to COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago about the decision to serve meat to guests at the event – which begins next week in Belem, Brazil.
McCartney penned: “I’m writing on behalf of my friends at PETA to ask you to align COP30’s menu with its mission by making it all vegetarian. This would greatly reduce its carbon footprint and overall environmental impact, setting a positive example for the world to follow.”
The 83-year-old musician was shocked by the lack of vegetarian options for guests, particularly with the grave threat that climate change poses to Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest.
The Let It Be artist said: “It is fitting that COP30 will be held in Belem, the gateway to the Amazon, whose rainforest is often called ‘the lungs of the Earth’ because it absorbs and stores massive amounts of carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen.
“Protecting the life-sustaining Amazon must be a top priority for environmentalists of all nationalities, so I was shocked to learn that only 40 per cent of the food served at COP30 is currently slated to be vegetarian.”
Paul couldn’t help but point out the irony of serving meat at an event designed to help the environment.
He quipped: “Serving meat at a climate summit is like handing out cigarettes at a cancer-prevention conference! The animal agriculture industry is a top driver of deforestation and the climate catastrophe that is wreaking havoc on the planet.”
McCartney concluded: “COP30’s own website confirms that plant-based meals have a substantially lower carbon footprint, so I urge you to lead by example and make the conference all vegetarian.”
Paul and his late wife Linda McCartney became vegetarians in 1975 and the music icon is proud to have been a pioneer of a diet that is now adopted by millions of people worldwide.
He said: “It was a joint decision, definitely. We were both quite happy eating meat, because she was a great cook, and we didn’t really think about it until we were on the farm one day eating a lamb dinner and both realised that the lambs outside were what we were eating. We didn’t like that.
“We said, ‘Shall we try going vegetarian?’ And actually, it was a very exciting point in our lives, trying to think of what we would have to fill the hole in the middle of the plate.
“Now of course, it’s really not difficult at all. You just go down the shops and most places will have great veggie options. It was a joint decision and we never looked back. It was a great thing to do, and it turned out we became part of a vegetarian revolution.”
