WEF has not advised the slaughter of Pets to fight Climate Change

CLAIM

World Economic Forum has advised the slaughter of pets to fight climate change. 

FACT

False. The World Economic Forum has said no such thing. 

WHAT THEY CLAIM

Many people on social media are sharing a video that shows an image of a Twitter post allegedly by the World Economic Forum (WEF). According to the video published on Rumble.com, the WEF recently launched a controversial new initiative that will have animal rights activists in arms. The video claims that the WEF is calling for millions of cats and dogs worldwide to be slaughtered in an effort to reduce the “carbon pawprint” they produce as a result of eating meat. Another website, NewsPunch transcribed the video originally published on Rumble.com in the form of an article and also cited a CNN report to make similar claims. 

WHAT WE FOUND

These claims which are circulating online are false and misleading. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has not called for pet animals to be slaughtered in order to cope with the climate change crisis. 

To find out if such a post is present on Twitter, we did an advanced search using keywords but could not find any such statement by the WEF.

The image on the thumbnail of the video published on Rumble.com is fabricated and WEF has made no such statements related to the slaughtering of pets. 

In fact, the last statement WEF made was on Dec 16, 2020, about sustainable pet foods. Advanced search on the WEF’s official website using the keyword “pet” has shown the latest articles dated Dec 2020 and October 2021. The article from October 2021 on World Economic Forum’s website discusses how pets proved invaluable to the mental health of their human owners during the COVID lockdowns.

This screenshot shows the search results on the World Economic Forum’s website page. Also, there is no post related slaughter of pets on WEF’s official Twitter handle. 

An article dated Nov 26, 2022, on the news website NewsPunch said, “Climate Activists Vow To Slaughter Millions of Dogs To Reduce Carbon Pawprint”. 

The article from NewsPunch has cited a CNN story published on Nov 24 claiming that CNN is saying that pets are leading to an increase in the carbon footprint of the globe. “According to a 2017 study, feeding dogs and cats creates the equivalent of around 64 million tons of carbon dioxide in the US each year.” 

The NewsPunch report is misleading and false. 

These key points are clearly mentioned in the CNN report:

“But don’t panic. Bidding farewell to your best friends(pets) is not the answer.”

In addition to all the joy they bring, pets have a measurable positive impact on our physical health and mental well-being. Having a pet in the family is associated with lower stress, fewer heart attacks, lower rates of depression, and increased self-esteem.

“Our work does not mean we are ‘against’ keeping pets,” said Pim Martens, a professor of Sustainable Development at Maastricht University and someone who has researched the impact of pets on the planet. “There are lots of benefits as well. Just be aware of the side effects.” 

These prove that the news article by CNN does not attempt to raise any contempt against the pets. The idea was to encourage the owners and make them aware of the carbon footprint generated so that it could be reduced in the future by altering some of the lifestyle habits of their pets.

(with inputs from Aayushi Sharma)