COP28 took the bull by the horns

This year’s United Nations Climate Conference, COP28, is now over. We see two reasons why COP28 outcomes will support the mission to cut cow burps.

1. $200M in funding to reduce methane emissions from cow burps

Agri-food systems typically attract next to no climate finance compared to other sectors.

Fortunately, climate finance for food systems has started to move rapidly. More than $7 billion has been pledged for food and agriculture since the start of the COP28 summit in Dubai. Cows burps, responsible for about 40% of agricultural emissions, got a fair bite of this budget. The Global Methane Hub, for example, launched the Enteric Fermentation R&D accelerator. This includes funding from the Bezos Earth Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It aims to coordinate efforts globally to reduce methane from cow burps, and it comes complete with funding of $200M.

2. New FAO roadmap to reduce 25% methane emissions from livestock by 2030

The FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nation, released their first ever roadmap to reduce emissions in the agriculture industry. It includes milestones and goals that describe a clear path for bringing the agriculture industry in line with 1.5 degrees. Methane from cow burps, known as enteric methane, is responsible for 69% of the EU’s agricultural methane emissions. Reducing these enteric methane contributions will be essential to meet the goals and milestones. These include a 25% reduction in methane emissions from livestock by 2030 and a halving of methane emissions from agri-food systems by 2045. It will take some serious action and investment, but it’s good to have the pathway laid out by FAO.

With this new roadmap, investors and policy makers can start to plot the way forward. It will also make it clear when we are not on track. If politicians start claiming that we can make our climate targets without dedicated policy action in agriculture, we now have something concrete that we can use to hold us all accountable

Why do we care?

We care a lot about reducing emissions from the food industry, particularly from beef and dairy. Beef and dairy are expected to be responsible for over 50% of the food sector’s contribution to rising temperatures by 2030. Enteric methane is the major reason for this, responsible for 40% of beef and dairy’s footprint.

Solutions to cut livestock emissions exist. With this support and funding, we can start scaling them up rapidly. Volta Greentech’s Lome™ cuts enteric methane by up to 90% when dosed daily.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Cora Taylor
Volta Greentech
+46 793577245
cora@voltagreentech.com

About Volta Greentech

Volta Greentech is a Swedish biotechnology company with 13 employees founded in 2019. The vision of the company is to eliminate methane emissions from cows by 2050. Volta is developing methane-reducing feed additives for cows that reduce their methane emissions by 70 to 90% per day of feeding. Successful demonstrations have been done on several commercial farms in Sweden.

Find out more and read our climate reports at: www.voltagreentech.com