COP26 and what it makes you think…

Derya Yıldız

World leaders came together at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 31 to November 12, 2021 to reduce global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. At COP26, where 197 countries participated, governments were asked to step up their emissions cuts and promised more money for poor countries tackling climate change. All of the participating countries signed the agreement text prepared at the conference. In addition, the “Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use”, signed by 133 countries, was also considered one of the most important breakthroughs of the summit.

The decisions taken at COP26, as for every sector, are closely related to the livestock and animal nutrition sector. Because the sector is already on the agenda with its share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Consumer trends, efficiency and profitability expectations of enterprises, developments in the raw material market were the main factors that guided the sector in the past. Today, environmental factors, which are also discussed in COP26, are becoming the dominant guiding force. Now breeders and feed manufacturers have to calculate the environmental impact in addition to past factors.

But how possible is this? Is knowing something has to be done enough to do it? In countries where the livestock sector is developed and has literally become an industry, it may be possible to take a step further and talk about the environmental impact. But what will happen in regions such as Africa and Asia, where a significant portion of animal husbandry still progresses at the level of small family businesses? In such countries, where even access to healthy food is a very serious problem, how are we going to tell breeders about the environmental impact, climate change, carbon emissions, alternative animal nutrition solutions?

And what about the transition from animal proteins to vegetable proteins or cultured meat products? Are we really ready for all this? How quickly can we change our consumption habits that settle in our souls? All this will not be as quick and simple as the decisions made on paper.

It is obvious that carbon emissions and environmental impact in all areas, including our industry, should be reduced rapidly, at least stopped. However, in the livestock industry, I think that it is not a realistic goal to be able to do this all over the world in a short time.

Implementations that are approved on paper but that will actually be carried out only in limited places, on a limited scale, will not benefit the world.

At this point, I thought of a phrase I heard frequently in protest demonstrations;
Either all of us, or none of us…” Is it meaningless!