COP26 or COPOUT26? PETA UK Marches for a Vegan World

Posted on by Laura Weyman-Jones

From Glasgow to London, PETA UK joined COP26 marches to help get the message across: you can’t be a meat-eating environmentalist. Everyone must go vegan for animals and the planet.


The Glasgow Cop26 climate march

PETA UK stood strong in Glasgow, where COP26 was taking place, alongside our supporters and other animal rights organisations, such as Viva! and One Kind, to draw attention to the environmental importance of going vegan.

The Cop26 climate march in London.

They didn’t stop there. They also joined the COP26 London march to make sure the vegan message was heard loud and clear.

What’s COP26?

COP26 – or COPOUT26 – is the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which brings parties together supposedly to accelerate action towards restoring the planet and tackling climate change. World leaders are expected to agree on ways to stick to the global “carbon budget” and prevent a rise in global temperature of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

But despite persistent campaigning from PETA and other organisations, the Australian government is still failing to take action to mitigate the catastrophic impact animal agriculture is having on our planet.

A bus in Glasgow with a PETA UK ad which reads "You can't be a meat-eating environmentalist. Take Personal Responsibility: Go Vegan."

Fight Climate Change With Diet Change

The fishing, meat, egg, and dairy industries aren’t just relentlessly cruel to animals – they’re also a nightmare for the environment. The United Nations states that urgent and unprecedented changes – including a shift to vegan eating – are needed to limit the catastrophic damage that will be caused by climate change.

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting out meat and dairy could reduce an individual’s food-related carbon footprint by up to 73%. The study concluded that going vegan is the “single biggest way” to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and conserve water and land, pointing out that the impact is “far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car”.

Activists hang a banner over the m8 motorway that says "Eating animals got us into this mess. Go vegan!"

PETA UK also made sure that anyone – including world leaders, celebrities, and officials – walking around Glasgow during this important time of climate emergency understood exactly how to help the situation. They plastered ads on the sides of Glasgow’s buses and hung a huge banner from the footbridge over the M8 motorway.

Try Vegan Now

Scientists agree that vegan foods have a smaller carbon footprint than their animal-derived equivalents, so the single biggest thing we can do as individuals to help combat climate change is to go vegan.

Try it now by signing up for our vegan challenge! We’ll help you with some top tips on living a vegan lifestyle and you can unsubscribe any time.

Go vegan for animals and the planet:

Katie White Kissing a cow on the noseTry Vegan Now!@olivewoodvegan