Paul McCartney on COP30: “Serving meat at a climate summit is like handing out cigarettes at a cancer prevention conference”

Paul McCartney has urged COP30 to go vegetarian, arguing that serving meat at a climate summit is “like handing out cigarettes at a cancer prevention conference”.

The Beatles legend has been a longstanding campaigner for vegetarianism and animal rights, ever since a moment in 1975 when he and his wife Linda saw lambs grazing near their Scotland farm while they were eating lamb.

The couple became public advocates for the ethical and environmental benefits of vegetarianism, launching their own food range Linda McCartney Foods in 1991. McCartney has continued to work closely with PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, since Linda’s death in 1998.

Now, he has issued a statement ahead of the start of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, which is taking place in Belem, Brazil from November 10 to 21.

In a post shared by PETA, McCarney has said: “Serving meat at a climate summit is like handing out cigarettes at a cancer-prevention conference!”

Align the menu with the mission! Concerned by the @UN’s Climate Change Conference’s hypocritical plans to serve planet-killing meat, Sir @PaulMcCartney wrote a letter to #COP30 organizers. pic.twitter.com/HWcLvMFvjO

— PETA (@peta) November 5, 2025

“The animal agriculture industry is a top driver of deforestation and the climate catastrophe that is wreaking havoc on the planet,” he added. “I urge you to lead by example and make the conference all vegetarian.”

PETA captioned the post: “Align the menu with the mission! Concerned by the UN’s Climate Change Conference’s hypocritical plans to serve planet-killing meat, Sir Paul McCartney wrote a letter to COP30 organisers.”

McCartney founded the Meat Free Monday campaign with his daughters Mary and Stella in 2009, encouraging people to eat a plant-based diet once a week. In 2021, a study showed that more than 30 per cent of those who engaged with the programme for five years or more stopped eating meat altogether.

In 2020, he backed calls to change guidance that makes it mandatory to serve fish, meat and dairy in England’s school meals, asking for children to be offered a vegan option.

The same year, one of The Simpsons‘ leading writers revealed that McCartney “always checks” that Lisa is still a vegetarian, after it became a key condition of his guest appearance on the show.

He appeared alongside Linda in 1995’s Lisa The Vegetarian, an episode in which Lisa vows to stop eating meat after meeting the McCartneys.

Elsewhere, it emerged this week that McCartney once sent baby poo to a lying journalist to get back at him for writing a scathing review of a Wings live show.

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