Few supermarkets or butcher shops in Lebanon are without Brazilian imported meat. Its prices are relatively affordable, making it widely popular among middle-income and lower-income consumers who struggle to purchase locally produced fresh meat, which is typically more expensive. Despite Lebanon’s small geographic and demographic size, the country ranked fifth among Arab importers of Brazilian meat in 2025. Brazilian meat now accounts for the largest share of local consumption.

Yet beyond its relatively affordable economic cost lies an overlooked consequence. The Brazilian cuts displayed in Lebanese supermarkets carry a transcontinental environmental footprint. On the other side of the world, near the halls of the upcoming COP30 climate conference, cattle ranches are consuming vast swathes of rainforest to meet rising global demand, including demand from Lebanon. This expansion fuels carbon emissions and undermines the rights of Indigenous peoples. In this way, a piece of meat served at a Lebanese table becomes part of the global climate crisis.

According to Lebanon’s Customs Administration, the value of animal and animal product imports from Brazil reached $186,075 at a volume of 44.67 tons between January and August 2025. Meanwhile, data from the Brazilian Association of Meatpacking Plants (ABRAFRIGO) shows that Lebanon ranked 17th globally among importers of Brazilian meat in 2024, with imports exceeding $100 million in a single year.

Imported Meat: The Forgotten Gap in Climate Plans

Ahead of COP30 in the Brazilian city of Belém, public debate in Lebanon questioned the country’s participation given its “minimal contribution to global emissions.” Yet reality reveals a clear gap between the emissions Lebanon produces within its borders and those it contributes to through its food consumption patterns.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit what are known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), outlining efforts to reduce emissions generated within their own territories. These commitments do not account for emissions embedded in imported goods or global supply chains. Although an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice affirmed that NDCs are a legal obligation rather than a voluntary choice, only a limited number of countries have actually submitted them.

Ahead of the conference, the United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report revealed that the world remains far from the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement. Emissions are projected to decline by only 10 percent by 2035, instead of the 60 percent reduction required.

In October 2025, Lebanon pledged to reduce its national greenhouse gas emissions by 22 percent as an unconditional target, and by 33 percent as a conditional target, compared to a Business as Usual scenario by 2035.

Yet while Lebanon declares its commitment to the Paris Agreement and to limiting global warming to 1.5°C, part of its actual carbon footprint is generated beyond its borders through imported goods. Brazilian chilled and canned meat continues to dominate Lebanese supermarkets. This raises a broader question about Lebanon’s ability to meet its climate targets while heavily relying on products considered among the leading global drivers of the climate crisis.

In this context, Benjamin Schachter, Coordinator of the Environment and Climate Change Team at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Daraj that “climate action must align with human rights obligations, including the right to a healthy environment and the rights of Indigenous peoples.” Schachter added that “the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice stresses that all states are obligated to take measures to prevent environmental harm and calls on them to align their NDCs with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.”

Regarding the negotiations underway in Belém, Schachter noted that states “have an important opportunity at COP30 to adopt outcomes consistent with the ICJ advisory opinion, including in the area of international cooperation to address climate change and its impacts, both within and beyond their borders.”

Slaughtering the Lungs of the Earth to Produce Burgers

The Amazon rainforest is often described as the “lungs of the Earth” and functions as a global climate regulator. It stores approximately 150 billion tons of carbon annually and absorbs around two billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, equivalent to about five percent of global emissions. This process helps lower global temperatures and maintain planetary habitability.

Between 1985 and 2022, agricultural land in Brazil expanded by 50 percent. An estimated 64 percent of that expansion resulted from deforestation aimed at converting forest land into cattle pasture.
Deforestation linked to cattle ranching releases approximately 340 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, equivalent to 3.4 percent of current global emissions, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The Brazilian government reports that cattle ranching alone accounts for up to 80 percent of total Amazon deforestation. In recent years, one hectare of Amazon rainforest has been lost every 18 seconds to cattle farming.

In September 2025, Brazil’s beef exports recorded a sharp increase, reaching $1.92 billion, a 49 percent rise compared to the same month in 2024.

A Human Rights Watch report further indicates that meat sourced from deforested areas carries not only a carbon footprint, but a human rights footprint as well. It is often linked to violations of Indigenous peoples’ rights and the seizure of their lands. Each time Lebanese consumers opt for cheaper Brazilian meat, they become part of a supply chain tied to deforestation and the erosion of Indigenous livelihoods.

For Arab civil society, hosting this year’s summit in the Amazon presents an opportunity to highlight the profound transformations inflicted on nature: Indigenous communities uprooted, cultures erased, forests cleared to plant soy, which is then converted into cattle feed to increase meat production for export, feeding what some describe as the “hamburger industry” at the heart of global consumer culture.

Land and Indigenous Rights: Climate Solutions

Thirty years after the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, climate negotiations return to the heart of the Amazon. The conference halls in Belém host the largest Indigenous delegation in the summit’s history, with more than 900 Indigenous representatives participating in formal discussions. This year’s climate summit carries renewed commitments to recognizing Indigenous rights as a central component of climate solutions.

This year, Brazil launched the “Global Ethical Review” initiative to foreground justice and equity in climate action. The initiative emphasizes the ethical and cultural dimensions of the climate crisis and its impact on women, children, and Indigenous peoples. The conference, described by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a “global platform for Indigenous peoples,” carried a pledge to protect 160 million hectares of Indigenous and local community lands by 2030.

Brazil is also leading the Tropical Forests Forever Facility initiative, which aims to provide long-term financing that rewards countries for protecting their forests, with a portion of the proceeds allocated to Indigenous communities. The initiative seeks to mobilize $25 billion from donor states and $100 billion from the private sector.

Courts across various regions of the world have ruled that unsustainable food production practices constitute violations of the right to a healthy environment. Among these decisions is the landmark ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of the Indigenous Communities of the Lhaka Honhat Association v. Argentina, which condemned cattle ranching and fencing within Indigenous lands as practices that undermine both environmental and human rights.

In this context, Benjamin Schachter told Daraj that, “according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), rights-based approaches lead to more effective and sustainable climate action.” He added, “The advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice regarding states’ obligations in relation to climate change makes it unequivocally clear that states have human rights obligations concerning climate change, and stresses that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of all other human rights.”

The Illusion of Climate-Friendly Meat

At COP30, cattle ranchers and major meatpacking companies are promoting the concept of “low-carbon beef,” relying on carbon capture technologies in an attempt to market it as a climate solution. Scientists, however, view this as a form of greenwashing.

According to Professor Pete Smith of the University of Aberdeen, carbon capture “is insufficient to offset the methane produced by cattle.” The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) further warns that “polluters are advancing carbon capture and storage technologies as a way to trap carbon dioxide emissions and bury them underground, yet this technology is risky, costly, and has failed to deliver the promised results.”

CIEL also reports that the number of lobbying groups representing the interests of industrial livestock producers, commercial grain, and pesticide industries increased by 14 percent this year compared to the previous climate summit held in Baku.

Livestock remains the leading agricultural source of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Each cow emits approximately 100 kilograms of methane annually through belching. Professor Smith noted that “methane emissions from livestock continue to represent a significant part of the climate problem.” A 2018 study found that producing one kilogram of beef generates roughly 100 kilograms of greenhouse gases.

Three decades after the launch of international climate negotiations, the annual Conference of the Parties has often ended with broad pledges that fall short of the structural transformation required. Meanwhile, production and consumption patterns, including industrial livestock farming and forest expansion for grazing, remain largely outside meaningful reform pathways.

According to Helen Harwatt, a climate and food systems scientist at the University of Oxford, aligning with the Paris Agreement pathway requires “reducing the production of animal feed and animal-derived foods, alongside a massive reduction in beef consumption.”
Civil society in the Arab region has emphasised “the importance of restoring Indigenous cultural knowledge found across world civilisations as a means to save the climate and humanity,” and has called for adopting an eco-cultural approach that promotes less environmentally extractive economic, agricultural, and transport systems. This entails rethinking agricultural and food policies, including growing dependence on imported meat sourced from regions experiencing large-scale deforestation.

Luciana Tiezzi Chaves, Senior Researcher in the Environment and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told Daraj that “addressing deforestation and the embedded human rights violations within cattle supply chains is a shared responsibility between sellers and buyers.”

In Lebanon’s case, trade and food policies, as well as consumer choices, are no longer merely domestic matters. They form part of a transnational climate equation, where what is placed on the dining table is reflected in forests and Indigenous rights on the other side of the world.