In response, Kelly McNamara, Senior Research and Policy Analyst with Friends of the Earth US, issued a statement on behalf of the Stop Financing Factory Farming campaign:

While today’s vote to broaden the World Bank’s mandate to address the climate crisis is a positive step forward, the World Bank’s actions must echo its words. If the World Bank intends for its operations to match its new mission, the Bank must end support for industrial livestock production. 

The climate consequences of industrial animal agriculture are staggering. Studies estimate livestock production will use up nearly half the world’s 1.5°C emissions budget by 2030 and 80% by 2050. The World Bank’s continued support for the global expansion of factory farming is exacerbating the climate crisis at a time when the Bank has committed to align its strategies, investments, and activities with the Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. To help preserve our collective chances at a world free of poverty on a livable planet, the World Bank must cease its support for factory farming, the continued expansion of which threatens to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals firmly out of reach.  

Today, we urge the World Bank to seize this pivotal moment to align its food sector investments with its expanded mission. This must involve shifting support away from corporate conglomerates engaged in highly extractive and destructive agricultural practices. It must also involve directing support toward diversified, agroecological, mixed crop and livestock and plant-based systems that not only deliver climate and biodiversity-related benefits but also support small-scale farmers who are the backbone of community food sovereignty and food security. To forego this opportunity would be a disservice to the planet and future generations.

To learn more about why the Bank’s investments in industrial livestock are at odds with its Paris Agreement Commitments, read the  Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign’s recent report. 

Contact: Holly Shulman, Holly.Shulman@gmail.com

The Stop Financing Factory Campaign works in partnership with locally affected communities and organizations to shift development finance away from industrial livestock production. Campaign Steering Committee members include: the Bank Information Center, Friends of the Earth U.S., the Global Forest Coalition, International Accountability Project (Early Warning System), Sinergia Animal, and World Animal Protection.

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As world leaders meet tomorrow in Paris to discuss the role of public finance in addressing “climate change and the global crisis”, delegates should press multilateral development banks (MDBs) to invest in line with the Paris Agreement, including by ending their expansion of factory farming.

Animal agriculture contributes up to a fifth of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including a third of the world’s methane emissions. Because methane has over 80 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year timeframe, swift and absolute reductions from the livestock sector are vital to keeping the Paris Agreement climate targets within reach.

According to leading researchers, even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, livestock emissions could make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult to limit it to “well below” 2°C.

MDBs livestock investments

Despite this, since 2010, the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have invested over $4.6 billion of public money to help expand large-scale livestock production, exacerbating the climate crisis while also driving deforestation, biodiversity loss, and air and water pollution.

Tomorrow world leaders will meet in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

The summit will address key issues, including reform of multilateral development banks, with the goal of “addressing climate change and the global crisis.” Central to such reform should be a commitment by MDBs to end their support for GHG-intensive and highly environmentally destructive industrial livestock operations.

On his first day as World Bank President, Ajay Banga made climate change a clear priority by directing his staff to “double down” on their climate efforts. But words aren’t enough. The World Bank and other MDBs must take concrete steps to preserve the best possibility of limiting global warming to “well below” 2°C. In agriculture, this translates into shrinking, not expanding, the global industrial livestock sector.

Fatal flaws

MDBs are fueling the global expansion of factory farming while failing to account for the sector’s impacts on climate.

In a new report we co-authored on behalf of the Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign (S3F), we argue that flaws in MDBs’ frameworks for aligning their investments with the Paris Agreement are resulting in the misclassification of industrial livestock investments as compatible with the Agreement’s mitigation and adaptation goals.

A key flaw is that the frameworks are based on countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)–the climate plans they submit to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But the UN’s climate body itself actually finds that NDCs are “not on track to meet climate goals.”

Equally important, only 40% of countries incorporate livestock into their NDCs, and none have set methane reduction targets from the sector. MDBs’ Paris Alignment frameworks also fail to account for the extreme vulnerability of intensive, highly centralized livestock operations to climate-related heat stress, disease spread, and water shortages.

None of the world’s leading MDBs currently require that industrial livestock sector borrowers provide comprehensive (Scope 1-3) emissions reporting or commit to absolute, time-bound GHG reduction targets.

IFC’s poor record

Even more concerning, a comprehensive analysis by Bank Climate Advisors reveals that the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has systematically failed to apply its own GHG-related environmental standards which are already insufficient to the task of reducing absolute emissions from industrial livestock production.

Only last month, IFC approved a $32 million loan to Brazilian dairy giant Alvoar Lacteos and a $47 million loan to GXYX, a massive pig farm operation in China, despite civil society concerns and opposition to each. Neither company has committed to comprehensive GHG reporting or reductions or time-bound zero-deforestation targets, and neither has addressed other negative l impacts of value-chain activities, including biodiversity loss from feed production and grazing.

Often, MDBs use arguments about food security and the need to keep food prices low to justify investments in resource-intensive factory farming operations.

In reality, however, a shift away from industrial livestock production toward agroecological systems could more efficiently and equitably feed the planet. These systems prioritize smaller-scale farmers and communities, help facilitate a shift toward sustainable, plant-forward diets, conserve natural resources, and yield significant climate and biodiversity-related benefits.

To honor their commitments to Paris Alignment, MDBs should shift their agricultural investments toward climate-friendly agroecological farming systems that support food sovereignty and food security, and end their investments in intensive, polluting and high-emitting industrial livestock operations. Shifting investments in this way would deliver economic, public health, food security, and climate dividends now and for future generations.

The post Multilateral banks’ investments in industrial livestock undermine their Paris climate commitments appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Download the executive summary
Download the report
Read the Inside Climate News story and our op-ed 

This report, authored by Friends of the Earth on behalf of the Stop Financing Factory Farming (S3F) campaign, and endorsed by eighteen civil society organizations, argues that multilateral development banks’ (MDBs) investments in industrial livestock are at odds with their commitments to align their investments and activities with the Paris Agreement. With just over six years left to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change and rein in factory farming-driven crises of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and the overuse and pollution of the planet’s air, land, and water, the S3F campaign is calling on MDBs to stop financing the expansion of the global industrial livestock sector.  

”Climate Misalignment” documents how MDBs’ frameworks for aligning their investments with the Paris Agreement are resulting in misclassification of industrial livestock investments as compatible with the Agreement’s mitigation and adaptation goals, and urges development banks to exclude industrial livestock and feed operations from sectors they consider “Paris-aligned.” The report makes several recommendations for improving climate mitigation requirements for any industrial livestock investments, including mandatory Scope 1-3 greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting and time-bound absolute emission reduction targets. 

The report details livestock’s contributions to climate change, including that the sector contributes up to a fifth (19.6%) of global GHG emissions and a third of the world’s methane emissions. Because methane has over 80 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year timeframe, swift and absolute reductions from the livestock sector are vital to keeping the Paris Agreement climate targets within reach. According to leading researchers, even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, livestock emissions could make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult to limit it to “well below” 2°C. 

Where livestock production can improve nutrition, food security, and livelihoods, the report recommends that MDBs, in consultation with local communities, should shift their support toward diversified, agroecological, mixed crop and livestock and plant-based systems that deliver climate and biodiversity-related benefits and support small-scale farmers who are the backbone of community food sovereignty and food security. Providing such support would also enable MDBs to better meet their pledges to align their investments and activities with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

About the authors: Kelly McNamara is a senior research and policy analyst and Kari Hamerschlag is deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth U.S. 

This report is endorsed by the Stop Financing Factory Farming (S3F) campaign and the following organizations: 

Bank Information Center (BIC)
Brighter Green
Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)
Center for Ecosystems Research and Development-Uganda (CERD)
Chilis on Wheels
Climate Save Movement
Compassion in World Farming
Family Farm Defenders
Feedback Global
Fórum Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Animal
Global Forest Coalition
In Defense of Animals (IDA)
International Accountability Project (IAP)
Plant Based Treaty
ProVeg International
Real Food Systems
Sinergia Animal
True Animal Protein Price Coalition
World Animal Protection

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In response to the announcement, Chloë Waterman, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth, released the following statement:

For too long, Big Ag corporations’ false or misleading labeling claims have duped consumers and undermined truly sustainable and humane producers. USDA has rubber stamped these claims, sowing confusion for consumers and creating an unfair playing field for producers.

Secretary Vilsack’s commitment today to strengthen substantiation of animal raising claims is a strong step in the right direction. USDA must ensure that all animal raising claims are backed up by a third-party certification that exceeds conventional production standards, and prohibit claims like ‘low-carbon beef’ that are fundamentally misleading.

Contact: Shaye Skiff, kskiff@foe.org, 202-222-0723

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The letter calls on USDA to “develop new scoring criteria with input from impacted communities and conduct a new NEPA analysis before soliciting applications for the next application window to ensure the substantial investment into REAP from the Inflation Reduction Act effectively mitigates climate change and centers environmental justice.”  

The Rural Energy for America Program provides grants and loans to agricultural producers and small businesses for renewable energy projects. Historically, most of the funded projects have been beneficial wind and solar projects and energy efficiency upgrades, but the program has also funded manure biogas and wood biomass projects that harm communities and are counterproductive to climate mitigation.  

As the letter states, “methane digesters do nothing to limit [harmful air pollutants] (and in fact, can increase ammonia emissions), while incentivizing operations to expand in size in order to generate more manure and profit from producing biogas.” Wood biomass energy “emits far more CO2 and other pollutants per unit of energy generated than fossil fuels.”  

REAP is USDA’s trial program for the Justice40 initiative, which is meant to ensure 40% of federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities. However, as the letter outlines, USDA’s changes to REAP represent a “complete bastardization of Justice40 and the core principles of environmental justice.”  

“USDA is siding with agribusiness at the expense of frontline communities,” said Sherri White-Williamson of the Environmental Justice Community Action Network. “Funding methane digesters, new pipeline infrastructure, and wood biomass production will increase pollution in overburdened, under-resources communities that Justice40 is intended to serve. Prioritizing big business demands is a slap in the face to impacted communities.” 

“We urge USDA to revisit the impact of these changes to Rural Energy for America Program on underserved farmers and communities.” said Lorette Picciano, executive director of the Rural Coalition. “In particular, the 15–point advantage for projects in disadvantaged and distressed communities with no similar advantage for underserved farmers may achieve the opposite of what the Justice40 Initiative intends.  More money into agribusiness-backed manure biogas and wood biomass projects may make the playing field for family farmers – and especially producers of color – more unfair.”  

“North Carolina is second in the country in hog production,” said Rania Masri, Co-Director of Organizing and Policy for the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. “In Duplin and Sampson counties, hogs outnumber people by 30-to-1. Billions of gallons of hog feces and urine are flushed into open-air pits and then sprayed onto nearby fields and onto people’s homes — polluting the air and water, and causing the families that live near the CAFOs to have higher rates of anemia, kidney disease, and infant mortality!  We need protection, and not financial incentives, in the form of taxpayer funds, to these polluting industries.  Rather than work to stop these horrendous levels of pollution, the USDA’s financial support for manure biogas will harm our communities already overburdened with pollution.” 

“USDA is betraying President Biden’s commitment to environmental justice with its changes to the Rural Energy for America Program,” said Chloë Waterman, senior program manager for Friends of the Earth. “Now, a white CAFO operator applying to produce factory farm methane gas and build new pipelines in a majority Black community will receive ‘environmental justice’ points because the community they are in is ‘disadvantaged.’ This backward approach to Justice40 will put more harmful projects in low-income and communities of color and hasten the climate crisis.”  

“USDA’s new grant approval process will concentrate even more pollution in communities already overburdened with the fallout from factory farming,” said Food & Water Watch Attorney Tyler Lobdell. “By favoring factory farm gas projects located in underserved communities, the Biden administration will further entrench and exacerbate existing environmental and public health harms while perversely incentivizing new pollution from biogas production, transport, and use. Environmental justice communities need less exposure to polluting industries, not false solutions that make pollution profitable.” 

“REAP is an important program for farmers who want to invest in on-farm solar and wind, real renewable energy produced without the polluting waste that comes with factory farm gas,” said Ben Lilliston, director of climate strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “REAP dollars going to expensive factory farm gas projects means that more farmers interested in on-farm solar or improved energy efficiency will be closed out of the program, setting back climate action.”

“USDA continues to embrace the biomass industry, at the expense of communities, forests, and the climate,” said Laura Haight, US Policy Director at Partnership for Policy Integrity. “Wood pellet mills and biomass combustion facilities emit smoke, dust, and hazardous air pollutants and predominantly end up in low-income communities and communities of color. These are exactly the types of facilities that the Justice40 report states will not benefit a community. Contrary to the promises of the Biden Administration, USDA’s changes to the REAP program will only accelerate environmental injustice.” 

Press Contacts: 

Shaye Skiff, Friends of the Earth, kskiff@foe.org, 202-222-0723 

Laura Haight, Partnership for Policy Integrity, lhaight@pfpi.net, 518-949-1797 

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“Our extensive interviews with community members found that PRONACA’s intensive pig farms in the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas region have continued to pollute the air and contaminate rivers, killing off fish which local people rely on for food and jobs, and are harming local tourism. CEDENMA is deeply concerned about IFC and IDBInvest’s failure to adequately enforce its standards and mandates with respect to PRONACA’s severe impacts on the water and the health of locally affected indigenous communities,” said Natalia Greene, Vice President, CEDENMA. “We are urging the public development banks and the government to enforce their policies and laws and help resolve long standing impacts of PRONACA’s operations on the health and wellbeing of indigenous communities.”  

Since 2004, the IDB and the IFC have provided more than $200 million USD in loans to PRONACA, Ecuador’s 4th largest corporation, the last being 50 million dollars each in 2021 to increase the production of chickens and pigs, among other activities. The report finds that the most recent loans violate several of the policies of these public development banks – whose purpose is to promote the protection of natural resources and social equity – affecting the communities and indigenous peoples of the province of Santo Domingo.

“We used to have a thriving tourism industry, and now we only have polluted air and water. The expansion of pig farms in our community will bring even more pollution to our already contaminated communities. We have filed many complaints about the company to the local authorities but they have not listened to us or done anything to resolve the problems,” said Ricardo Calazacon, a local indigenous leader and medicinal plant expert.

“By giving millions of dollars of public money to PRONACA, IDB Invest and the IFC are violating their own policies and causing negative impacts to Indigenous communities and fragile ecosystems in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. This report is more evidence that every dollar spent on factory farming harms communities and jeopardises development progress. Public development banks must stop propping up a failing system, stand alongside Indigenous groups and stop financing factory farming,” said Kari Hamerschlag, Deputy Director, Food and Agriculture, Friends of the Earth U.S. 

In order to raise awareness about the harms of these loans and PRONACA’s operations, CEDENMA and its NGO partners are launching a social media campaign using the hashtag #PRONACAContamina. They are also releasing a new short video based on the testimonials of local community members that were presented in Detrás de la Carne. 

The report documents significant harms and policy violations: 

• Local communities close to the pork and poultry operations in the communities of Peripa and Chigüilpe are unaware of the company’s expansion plans, despite bank policies that require the disclosure and dissemination of “environmental and social information relevant to the interested parties”.
• Indigenous communities in the area of ​​influence were not informed or consulted about these new operations as required by Ecuadorian law and IDB policies.
• Lawsuits and the company’s inaction regarding the 2009 court ruling establishing a commission to monitor and document environmental impacts in the communities of Puerto Limón, Valle Hermoso, San Gabriel del Baba and Peripa were not taken into account. This  court order has so far not been applied.
• Failure to ensure that PRONACA obtains new licenses for expansion activities, despite the fact that the IDB documents mention that these expansions are likely to require new licenses.
• Residual impacts were not addressed. The rivers downstream of this industrial operation, on which the communities previously depended for their livelihoods, are no longer usable. The company has not addressed these or other significant residual impacts, as required by proper application of the Banking Performance Standards.
• Odorous emissions have not been mitigated and have long been one of the negative impacts of intensive animal husbandry and slaughter operations.

Since the banks and government authorities have neglected their own policies that require genuine stakeholder participation, informed consent, transparency and accountability, local communities and their Ecuadorian and international NGO partners request IFC and IDB Invest to undertake the following actions:

1. Greater disclosure of information. IFC and IDB Invest should require the company to transparently disclose the following information:
   1. Current and planned numbers and types of animals, with precise locations.
   2. Operating permits for said facilities and expansion plans.
   3. Cumulative impact assessments and specific environmental management plans.
   4. Comprehensive environmental monitoring and compliance reporting for all groundwater/aquifer withdrawals, wastewater treatment discharges, and gaseous emissions.
2. Require the company to have a surface and groundwater quality monitoring program and ensure those results are publicly available.
3. Establish meaningful consultation with affected indigenous communities, so that community members can raise concerns without fear of retaliation.
4. Require the company to install deep bedding materials on all of its hog farms owned and contracted to improve animal welfare and sanitary conditions and to minimize impacts on air quality in local communities.
5. Establish more stringent requirements to reduce supply chain impacts. With the company sourcing animal feed from approximately 800 suppliers, it is critical that it put in place a much more rigorous system of assessment, monitoring, reporting and verification to understand the impacts of feed producers on biodiversity, GHG emissions and deforestation. This system must be independent and related data available to interested parties.
6. Encourage the implementation of the judicial resolution of 2009 (No. 0567-08-RA of July 16, 2009), which establishes a commission of representatives from the government, the company and the community to monitor, evaluate and mitigate the damages related to the “operation of the biodigesters, the consumption of water, and the management of organic and inorganic waste that is dumped into bodies of water”.
7. Investigate the impacts of business operations to determine if compensation is warranted to indigenous communities.

We request that the National Government:

1. Activate a joint commission.
2. Ensure all licenses are granted necessary and that the environmental plans are presented and executed.
3. Implement an environmental audit.
4. Recognize the constitutional rights of local communities.

Implementation of the above recommendations can alleviate the suffering of affected communities, restore impacted ecosystems, and provide a model of good environmental and social governance. Taking these steps is also required by bank policies and Ecuadorian law.

Recording of the press conference livestream here

Communications contact: Haven Bourque, haven@havenbmedia.com, 415-505-3473 

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Jason Davison, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth issued the following statement:

The Biden Administration is right to focus on mitigating climate change, and many of the projects announced today seem worthy of support. Unfortunately, several of them will funnel tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to some of the most egregious climate offenders — Big Ag corporations like JBS, Cargill, and ADM.

USDA handing $60 million taxpayer dollars to Tyson Foods to create “climate-smart” beef would be like EPA giving a $60 million grant to Exxon to create “green” gasoline. It’s a massive corporate giveaway, and it’s unacceptable.

These grants fly in the face of President Biden’s executive order calling for USDA to combat consolidation in agriculture. They lay the groundwork for giant agribusinesses to use these projects to greenwash their own emissions and collect tremendous amounts of farm data.

Many of these corporations and trade associations have historically fought climate mitigation measures, refusing to report data on their emissions and other pollution. Going forward, Congress and USDA must ensure transparency and accountability for these projects. Taxpayers deserve to know who benefits from this funding and the outcomes for GHG emissions and other environmental impacts, for consumers, and for impacted rural communities, farmers, and farmworkers.

Communications contact: Haven Bourque, haven@havenbmedia.com

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