The Meat Free Monday team including Sir Paul McCartney and his daughters Mary and Stella, are encouraging people to take the pledge to skip meat one day a week, to reduce their carbon footprint and help tackle climate change.
The ‘Meat Free Monday Climate Pledge’ campaign (make sure you follow and use the twitter tag #MFMclimatepledge) will run during the build up to the UN Climate Summit that is taking place later this month.
Greg Barker, the Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, will be taking the signed pledge to the UN Climate Summit, where Global Leaders will be meeting in New York, on 23rd September 2014, to showcase support, and talk about the positive benefits for eating (and producing) less meat.
Did you know?
Meat production is responsible for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization1, with some scientists saying the percentage is higher.
Skipping meat for one day a week can reduce your annual carbon footprint by as much as not driving your car for a whole month.
An area of Amazon rainforest the size of a hundred football pitches is cut down every hour to create room for grazing cattle.
The launch, held at vegetarian restaurant tibits in Mayfair, was attended by environmental NGO leaders and a host of supporters including Chrissie Hynde and Victoria Pendleton. During a delicious Meat Free Brunch, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, WWF, Global Action Plan, Sustainability Hub and the Eating Better alliance came together to back the campaign and committed to encouraging their members and supporters to get involved too.
Greg Barker, who has personally supported Meat Free Monday since the start of the year said: “Giving up meat one day a week is more than just a symbolic act and, if enough of us do it, will send a very powerful and loud message to world leaders. Meat production is an increasingly large contributor to dangerous climate change so coming together like this may have a small but very real impact.”
The hope is for a million signatures by the end of this week so please pledge to go meat free for at least one day a week here: http://pledge.meatfreemondays.com
For full details of the campaign follow this link: www.meatfreemondays.com