Food Industry Executives Call on Congress for Climate Change Action

If the US Congress is to take meaningful action to curb climate change, the support of corporate America and Republicans will be required.  This is why a meeting of food industry executives and politicians – joined by a lone Republican congressman – on Capitol Hill on Thursday may be the first glimmer of a bipartisan approach to climate action.

US senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, and US representative Chris Gibson, a New York Republican, chaired the briefing.  Bucking party orthodoxy, Gibson recently drew attention by organizing 11 moderate Republicans to support a resolution acknowledging the reality of climate change and asking Congress to act.

The briefing was held to call attention to a letter signed by CEOs of some of the world’s biggest food companies, which asks governments to set “clear, achievable” science-based targets for carbon emissions reductions.  Ceres circulated the letter, which was published in full-page ads in the Washington Post and Financial Times.

Signed by the CEOs of companies including Mars, General Mills, Unilever, Dannon North America, Ben & Jerry’s, Kellogg, Nestle USA, New Belgium Brewing, Stonyfield Farm and Clif Bar, the letter says that climate change is “bad for farmers and for agriculture” and warned that “drought, flooding and hotter growing conditions threaten the world’s food supply and contribute to food insecurity”.

Gibson said he advocates action to curb climate change for the same reason that he supports a balanced federal budget:  “So that future generations get the same choices and freedoms that we have.”

“When you look at this, this is not a Democratic or Republican issue,” Gibson said.  “It is an American issue.  It is a human issue.  I mean, if conservation isn’t conservative, then words have no meaning at all.”

Gibson’s willingness to step forward is “not only a very big deal, it’s also a very courageous deal”, according to Whitehouse.  None of the Republican presidential candidates have supported climate action.  Just last week, the candidate leading in national polls, Donald Trump, reiterated on CNN: “I don’t believe in climate change.”

The opposite message was delivered by food industry executives at a Capitol Hill briefing, which was organized by the Ceres environmental coalition.  Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars, said: “We’re on a path to planet warming of more than four degrees.  We’re on a path to a dangerous place.”

Read more at Food Industry Executives Call on Congress for Climate Change Action