After two weeks of negotiations, speeches, industry lobbying and civil society actions, the UN Climate Summit COP26 has ended with the Glasgow Climate Pact, an agreement between almost 200 nations on how to keep the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement alive.

Inevitably, politicians are keen to cast the Glasgow pact in as positive a light as possible, in particular, because it is more specific on scaling back fossil fuel production than previous climate summits have managed. By contrast, George Monbiot has called the agreement “a suicide pact”, and director of Global Justice Now Nick Dearden described it as a “hollowed-out agreement” that won’t deliver justice for those facing the worst impacts of climate change.

COP26 should indeed have been a major turning point for ending the fossil fuel era and centring climate justice. It also should have been a turning point for nonhuman beings. Countries agreed upon several key targets that, if taken to their logical conclusions, should slash the number of animals being killed for food and protect millions of wild animals in the process. But the absence of any reference to reforming the world’s food systems leaves the fate of other species unchanged at worst and uncertain at best.

The first targets of note are the commitment of $20 billion in public and private finance for protecting forests and a pledge, signed by more than 100 world leaders, to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Surge already covered the problems with this pledge, namely how it fails to address the leading causes of deforestation including agricultural expansion. Different forested regions clear trees to grow different agricultural products; for example, the palm oil industry is to blame for the majority of deforestation in Indonesia, while in Brazil and Argentina cattle ranching and growing soy for animal feed are major drivers. There are animal victims connected to all these activities, whether it’s the wild animals losing their homes to palm oil or soy plantations, or the farmed chickens, pigs, and cows in places like the UK and US who are confined indoors and fed on imported soy. Countries must look at how they are contributing to deforestation and make plans to scale back those activities accordingly. For the UK, that would certainly include phasing out intensive animal agriculture, saving millions of animals from miserable lives and deaths.

Next is the commitment to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 - AKA the Global Methane Pledge. US President Joe Biden hailed this as “game-changing” for cutting emissions in the short term, especially as 15 major methane emitting countries have signed up. Agriculture is the source of 40 per cent of global methane emissions, the majority of which comes from ruminant animals and manure pits. But there are worrying signs that attempts to reduce methane from animal agriculture will take the route of techno-fixes.

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The Guardian reports that the presidents of the UK’s four farming unions present at COP26 all think that methane emissions can be “dealt with through new technologies rather than reducing the number of cows on farms,” while Thomas Vilsack, the US secretary of agriculture “says he believes Americans can carry on eating the same amount of meat while keeping the world within safe limits on global heating.” Feeding cows seaweed and capturing the methane from their manure in biodigesters are among the “solutions” on which the meat and dairy companies and governments are pinning their hopes.

Another type of food production that got no attention is fishing. Industrial fishing with trawlers emits as much carbon as the aviation sector and decimates marine habitats and wildlife. Though the Glasgow pact “Emphasizes the importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems... including through forests and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and by protecting biodiversity,” it does not acknowledge how the fishing industry undermines those goals. Famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle called for governments to ban industrial fishing on the high seas, saying at COP that, “It’s the No 1 priority, because we have the chance, in a stroke, to safeguard the blue heart of the planet. It’s where most of the oxygen that comes from the ocean is generated. It’s where most of the carbon is taken up.”

Thousands of marine animals, from sharks to dolphins to sea turtles, die every year by becoming entangled in discarded fishing nets, known as ghost nets, while others are injured or killed when they become bycatch. Trillions of fish are pulled from the oceans each year, with many being crushed or suffocated to death in the process. It’s difficult to see how nations will protect marine ecosystems while allowing this assault on them to continue.

As Surge has reported, there was a determined contingent of advocates for a plant-based food system at COP, not only trying to raise its profile as an obvious climate solution backed by climate science, but also as a voice for the animals trapped in the food system. Unfortunately, they remain the last consideration for decision-makers when it comes to thinking about food production, if they figure into their thinking at all.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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