Global Day Of Action Against Big Meat And Dairy Climate Pollution Starts With Fonterra - Greenpeace

Dramatic scenes have unfolded outside the offices of Big Meat and Dairy companies around the world overnight as Greenpeace concludes a global day of action against livestock industry climate pollution. The protests kicked off in New Zealand yesterday morning and continued through the night in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany.

Greenpeace activists in Aotearoa scaled Fonterra’s 60-metre-tall Te Rapa factory at dawn yesterday, unfurling two large banners reading ‘Fonterra’s methane cooks the climate’. They remained on the building for several hours until they were removed by police.

In Denmark, activists targeted pork and beef producer Danish Crown, while in Sweden, activists targeted Arla, the fifth biggest dairy company in the world. In Germany, activists protested outside the headquarters of Müller - a German dairy corporation. All of the actions featured billowing plumes of pink smoke, symbolising the outsized methane emissions from the global livestock industry.

Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn says, "We have the chance to pull the climate emergency brake by cutting methane emissions now. If the world reduces cow numbers, we can slow down climate change and prevent the worst climate catastrophes," says Deighton-O’Flynn.

"As one of the world’s biggest exporters of dairy products, New Zealand has a huge role to play in this story. That requires us to demand better from our biggest dairy company, Fonterra."

Greenpeace Nordics spokesperson Shefali Sharma says, "For so long, we have tiptoed around big meat and dairy companies and their unfettered growth as if they are somehow exempt from making the drastic changes required of everyone else on this planet.

"It’s always either the farmer or the consumer who has to change, while these companies decide what farmers grow, what they are paid and what we eat. We have shown that the pathway is clear."

The day of action coincided with the launch of a Greenpeace report revealing that the methane emissions of 29 meat and dairy corporations are larger than those of the top 100 methane-emitting companies in the fossil fuel sector. The report goes in-depth into a critique of Fonterra’s climate roadmap, showing it to be full of greenwash without any substantial action to reduce methane emissions.

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