Public Policy

AIM for Climate

Food and agriculture produce 26-37% of global greenhouse gas emissions—three-quarters of those emissions are from the livestock sector.

About AIM for Climate

In November 2021, the United States and the United Arab Emirates launched the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate). This initiative aims to foster global collaboration among governments, NGOs, businesses, universities, philanthropists, and other actors to accelerate investment, research, development, and implementation of practices and technologies that decrease greenhouse gas emissions from food and agriculture. AIM for Climate encourages both public and private funding for projects that develop, scale, demonstrate, or deploy these "climate-smart" solutions through 2025. To date, the initiative has over 200 partners and has garnered over $4 billion in funding for a variety of projects, including $2.8 billion in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund 70 pilot projects across the nation.

AIM for Climate marks a long overdue international recognition of agriculture's role in the climate crisis. However, we cannot resolve our agriculture system's problems with the same thinking that created them. Farming intensification has not only released great quantities of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, but it has also destroyed millions of acres of wildlife habitat, polluted our air and water, decimated our soil fertility, and abused billions of animals.

Putting the "smart" in "climate-smart solutions"

Unfortunately, not all "climate-smart" solutions are created equal. Some solutions that have been presented, such as giving drugs and feed additives to cattle to make them produce less methane and capturing methane from manure lagoons, only perpetuate farmed animal abuse and fail to address other key consequences of factory farming, such as antibiotic resistance and zoonotic disease. In addition, imposing further input expenses such as drugs and machines may put struggling farmers in even more financial hardship.

The investments made by AIM for Climate and its partners will dictate the trajectory of our food system at the most critical moment for our planet. We must ensure the solutions funded and implemented today through AIM for Climate put us on the right path to a cruelty-free, sustainable, and livable future.

CIWF's role in AIM for Climate

In April 2022, Compassion in World Farming joined AIM for Climate as a knowledge partner to support solutions that meaningfully reduce climate impacts as well as improve animal welfare, protect wildlife, and enhance food security. With 87 billion farmed animals in a sector that generates 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that we implement and expand radical changes to the livestock sector on a global scale if we are to save animals from suffering and save our planet.

Together, we can #AimForMore

With the right solutions, we can heal our climate and so much more.

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Core solutions to mitigate the climate crisis

Shifting toward plant-based diets is key for both ending farmed animal abuse and protecting our climate. We can reduce these impacts by converting land dedicated to livestock and feed production into fields for fruit, vegetable, grain, nut, and legume production, including the production of high-protein crops such as peas and chickpeas, for direct human consumption. This can also reduce the total amount of land needed for agriculture, leaving the surplus land available to rewild or to use for other purposes. Increasing plant-based food consumption also includes educating those in high meat-consuming countries about how to switch to nutritious and satisfying plant-based diets and expanding access to appropriate plant-based foods.

Cellular agriculture, also known as “cultivated meat” production, can help satisfy meat product demand while eliminating the welfare and environmental impacts of traditional livestock production. Recent innovations have enabled startups to produce thousands of meat products from a single culture, meaning that one harmless cell collection event from an animal can produce thousands of meat products. Preliminary data shows that cellular agriculture can reduce livestock-related land use by 95%, water use by 78%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 92%.

Regenerative agriculture is a farming philosophy that uses holistic, integrated practices to encourage and support the natural functions of the local ecosystem. This approach, which can apply to both crop production and livestock production, allows farmed animals to live in their natural habitats and express natural behaviors such as grazing, foraging, dustbathing, etc., while also increasing vegetation and improving soil health, which stores carbon. Some examples of regenerative practices include rotational grazing, cover cropping, food forests (also known as forest gardens), and silvopasture.

Indigenous peoples have been successfully stewarding ecosystems for thousands of years. About 80% of the world's biodiversity lies within indigenous territories, making these lands and the role indigenous peoples have in maintaining them critical to solving the climate crisis and protecting wildlife. Agricultural climate efforts must take extreme care not to encroach upon, interfere with, or steal indigenous land.