Tomorrow is the first day of the 28th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), the two-week diplomatic marathon in which every nation on Earth endeavors to come to a consensus about what we should do about the climate crisis.
This year's host, the United Arab Emirates, is a top petroleum producer and has created a variety of embarrassing public relations campaigns to try to cover up that fact. (Spoiler alert for the petrostate’s next scandal: Remember how the COP27 app was a "cyber weapon"? Well, keep that, and the UAE's record on state surveillance, in mind before downloading the official COP28 app...)
But those are real issues, so disinformers couldn't care less, as they're busy either greenwashing or downplaying the conference's significance.
However, a few have set the stage for COP28 by throwing their audience some red meat, literally, by publishing meat-based disinfo.
It started over the weekend, when Bloomberg covered the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forthcoming report detailing how countries that consume lots of meat should eat less of it (because food systems overall are responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions) and nations that need to eat more because people need the protein, should pursue more eco-friendly livestock practices. So it's specifically not calling to end meat consumption by any stretch of the imagination.
Predictably, Climate Depot (a climate disinformation site run by Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow) ran a spun rehash of Bloomberg’s article, which includes the fanciful addition that COP28 will "officially target meat eating." Luckily, that disinfo didn't seem to get much attention.
Not to worry though, as both Fox News and the Washington Free Beacon found ways to spice it up!
At Fox, Thomas Catenacci did his job as a polluter scribe and amplified comments from Republicans calling farmers and ranchers "climate heroes, reducing emissions while providing abundant and affordable food, fiber, and fuel.” That may be true for a handful of sustainable agriculture producers, but certainly isn't for the industrial-scale agriculture companies who provide the vast bulk of the meat on the market.
And at the Free Beacon, Meghan Blonder went the xenophobic conspiracy theory route, framing the report as outrage bait by alleging the UN's FAO "is led by a top Chinese Communist Party official who is known for using the agency to serve Beijing." While there are certainly legitimate concerns expressed more fairly elsewhere, this piece is a cheap shot relying on the idea that some elaborate conspiracy to make Americans eat less meat will benefit China, which imports meat.
That's it. That's the extent of the secret Chinese agenda supposedly behind this FAO report. Chinese people want to eat meat, therefore China's secretly forcing the FAO to acknowledge meat's climate impact to reduce US meat consumption. Makes perfect sense.
Heading into COP28, stay on the lookout for disinformation of all kinds, because the same bad actors trying to demonize the UN and sow fear about meat restrictions will surely kick into overdrive to attack any meaningful solutions that will (hopefully) come out of the climate summit.