Eating our way out of climate collapse
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A third of greenhouse gas emissions come from the food industry, largely from meat, dairy and eggs. The international Plant Based Treaty aims to combat this by advocating for a vegan diet as a key solution to climate change. Backed by cities, universities, Nobel laureates and thousands of individuals, it seeks to align global efforts with the Paris Agreement.
This is a story from the archives. This originally aired on November 29, 2024. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed.
In this episode:
- Juan Pablo Casadiego (@casadiego_juan), Plant Based Treaty Coordinator
- Anita Krajnc (@animalrightsyay), Plant Based Treaty Coordinator
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolome and Veronique Eshaya with Sarí el-Khalili, Duha Mosaad, Hagir Saleh, Cole van Miltenburg, Manny Panaretos, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Alexandra Locke.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Connect with us:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, YouTube, we're throwing it back with an episode from the archives today. |
| 0:04.2 | None of the dates, titles, or references from that time have changed. Enjoy. |
| 0:12.8 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:23.6 | Today, the elephant in the room is a cow. Just to produce a hamburger, a beef burger, requires 3,000 liters of water. |
| 0:30.6 | The food sector is 30 years behind the fossil fuel sector in terms of addressing it as an issue. |
| 0:36.6 | The growing movement championing a plant-based diet. |
| 0:42.1 | I'm Kevin Horton, and this is the take. |
| 0:52.1 | They say you are what you eat. |
| 0:54.9 | And most people, myself included, are omnivores. |
| 0:58.3 | But are omnivores paying attention to the toll it takes on the planet and the climate just to feed ourselves? |
| 1:04.4 | Well, the answer says Anita Kreintz is no, we are not. |
| 1:09.7 | The food sector is going to take us past the 1.5, 2 degrees Celsius. |
| 1:13.7 | Just on its own. |
| 1:14.7 | On its own. |
| 1:15.3 | Forget about fossil fuels, just on its own. |
| 1:20.3 | Anita is the global campaign coordinator for the plant-based treaty. |
| 1:24.4 | She's based in Toronto, where she's been helping to lead a growing movement |
| 1:27.8 | to endorse a plant-based diet. It has more than 200,000 endorsers. Now, it's a non-binding |
| 1:34.8 | treaty, but over time, these small changes, activists hope, can really add up. |
| 1:40.5 | Some scientists say that avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest way to reduce an individual's |
| 1:46.0 | environmental impact on the planet, as animal-based foods create about twice the emissions |
| 1:51.0 | as plant-based foods. |
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