A Tale of Two Santa Martas

It’s a tale of two documents, emerging from the parallel conferences held in the same city. One closely reflects the reality of the crises we face; the other is more typical, reflecting big business influence on governments, downplaying the urgency of the emergency and ignoring important facets of it.

From April 24th through 29th, the First Conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels was held in Santa Marta, Colombia (1). Organized by the Colombian and Dutch governments, with 57 countries participating, the conference’s aim was to speed the move away from fossil fuels and towards a stable climate.

In the end, it set up ‘workstreams’ to create roadmaps for national and regional fossil fuel phase outs. A vision of a new ‘global climate democracy’ was laid out. Almost no concrete actions were proposed. Animal agriculture, the other major contributor to global warming, was barely mentioned.

The declaration is weak; it’s far from commensurate with the scale of the ecological crises we face.

In contrast, the parallel Santa Marta People’s Summit Declaration (2) is far stronger. It calls for a truly rapid transition to renewable energy – and it goes much further.

The People’s Declaration highlights the massive role of animal agriculture in global warming, further noting that the “sector actively destabilizes the very hydrological cycles and food systems vulnerable communities rely upon.”

It explicitly states that “the transition is incomplete without transforming global agriculture and agro-industrial food systems which includes industrial animal husbandry, which are a major driver of fossil fuel dependence and greenhouse gas emissions. … By shifting toward localized, animal-free ecofarming models, we can secure food sovereignty, promote youth-oriented agricultural initiatives, and create dignified rural livelihoods.”

They’re right. Let’s listen! Let’s live our lives enjoying the enormous diversity plant-based foods offer, and inspire those around us to do the same. And lets work as hard as we can to convince our governments to act on the People’s Declaration’s call.