First published in Edie

19 January 2026

How the agriculture lobby keeps methane off the table

Nusa Urbancic, CEO, Changing Markets Foundation

The COP30 President, André Aranha Correa do Lago, identified food systems and agriculture as one of several “super leverage points” for effective action on climate change. Despite this promising start, food systems and agriculture were conspicuously absent from the summit’s final text, while the sector’s vast methane footprint was largely flying under the radar at the conference.

But the clock is ticking: 30% methane cut under the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) is now less than five years away, and current commitments bring us less than one-third of the way to this goal.

As it stands, agriculture is responsible for one-third of global emissions and 42% of methane, but key opportunities to address this at COP30 were missed. Despite referring to the meeting in Belém as the “forest COP”, action to stop cattle and soy-linked deforestation was rolled back, and there was an attempt to push for quadrupling of biofuel production despite the pressure on land this is driving.

Just before COP30, T&E released an analysis showing that biofuels already use the land area the size of Italy for only 4% of global transport energy. These omissions and setbacks are not accidental oversights, but the result of years of strategic lobbying and multimillion-dollar campaigns by major agribusinesses.

Why methane matters

Cutting global methane emissions is the climate emergency brake we need to stay close to the 1.5C warming trajectory agreed under the Paris Agreement. Methane is a greenhouse gas (GHG) on steroids, which, over a 20-year period, traps over 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide (CO2). But it is short-lived, so cuts in methane can significantly and quickly address global heating.

Achieving the 30% goal in the GMP would deliver $330bn in annual benefits, prevent 180,000 premature deaths, and reduce warming by 0.2C. This perhaps does not sound like much, but every fraction of every degree makes a huge difference on our planet, especially when it comes to food security.

Rapid methane cuts are in the self-interest of big agribusinesses, which are uniquely dependent on a stable climate – for example, a 30% reduction by 2030 would also avoid 19 million tonnes of crop losses. So why are these companies so opposed to methane action?

An agricultural blind spot

Brazil, the host of COP30, with more cows than people and its agriculture alone accounting for over 75% of the country’s total methane emissions, is a case in point. Although Brazil is a signatory of the GMP and the fifth largest methane emitter, our recent report The Meat Agenda: Agricultural Exceptionalism and Greenwash in Brazil shows that the Brazilian government has no measures to effectively address methane or wider agricultural emissions in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Despite its headline ambition to reduce emissions by 59-67% by 2035 (compared to 2005 levels). The country’s powerful agribusiness lobby succeeded in removing a majority of policy and fiscal measures to actually achieve such reductions.

The situation is similar in other countries that have included food and agriculture in their NDCs. While an analysis by WWF revealed that 93% of updated NDCs include at least one food-systems measure, only 16% mention sustainable, healthy diets. Agricultural emissions should have been a strong feature of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), but just 4% include quantified, time-bound agricultural methane reduction targets.

This is agricultural exceptionalism in action, favouring Big Agribusiness, underpinned by close industry-government ties. It is maintained through systemic greenwashing, pro-industry narratives and behind the scenes lobbying. Through these actions, the industry delays regulation, waters down methane reduction targets, and sows the seeds of doubt on established climate science.

The key strategy by the meat industry ahead of COP30 was to try to position itself as part of the solution, through organising a series of events, political dialogues, and partnerships with media and influencers to showcase how Brazilian agriculture is already very clean and efficient. This culminated in more than 300 agribusiness lobbyists attending the COP – a quarter of which represented meat giants such as JBS, MBRF, and Minerva.

Beyond the official count of lobbyists, many more were active inside the Agrizone, an official COP space hosted by the Brazilian agricultural agency Embrapa, whose sponsors included Nestlé and Bayer. We visited the Agrizone, where the emphasis was overwhelmingly on technological fixes, innovation and efficiency, while more scientifically proven climate measures, such as shifting to plant-based diets and reducing methane, were nowhere to be found.

Leaders and laggards

To highlight methane (in)action and call for accountability, Changing Markets launched the Methane Action Tracker as COP30 kicked off. It is the first interactive platform to monitor and compare agricultural methane emissions across both companies and countries. The tracker shows which of the world’s biggest food companies and major meat and dairy-producing countries are making progress, and which are falling behind.

We hope it will bring greater transparency to the debate around agricultural methane emissions, as well as a race to the top, when it comes to corporate methane action.

On the positive side, we now have nine companies that disclose their methane emissions (Group Bel, Danone, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Clover Sonoma, Starbucks, Lactalis US, Nestlé, and FreislandCampina), and four that have already reported methane reductions (Group Bel, Danone, Kraft Heinz, and Nestlé).

And at COP30, in a surprising but welcome move, MBRF became the world’s first meat company to disclose its indirect supply chain emissions (Scope 3) and outline a methane reduction strategy: promising a 33% reduction by 2035. Though the details of how this will be achieved remain unclear, the commitment proves that meat companies can join the ranks of methane action.

The road to COP31

Preparations for COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, are already underway and the agriculture industry will no doubt be working hard to ensure agricultural exceptionalism remains in place. But rather than lobby against climate measures, companies should join the ranks of those already taking methane action – for it is in their self-interest.

According to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), a 30% methane cut by 2030 is still within reach, but action must really accelerate, especially when it comes to agriculture.

Time is of the essence. Governments and policymakers must encourage targets, disclosure and concerted action through vigorous regulatory frameworks and methane reduction targets based on science – not corporate interest. The climate brake is in front of us. Now is the time to pull it.