Rachel Sherrington
banner
rachelsherrington.bsky.social
Rachel Sherrington
@rachelsherrington.bsky.social
Investigative researcher and reporter with DeSmog. Writing about climate and food politics. Work covered in the Guardian, Vice News, FT, The Hill & others

https://www.desmog.com/user/rachel-sherrington/
Pinned
🔴 Hundreds of representatives of industrial agriculture accessed the UN climate talks again this year

It comes after UN experts called for major reforms to protect the summits from corporate interests

My latest for @desmog.bsky.social & @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Hundreds of lobbyists for industrial farming attend Cop29 climate summit
Nearly 40% of food sector lobbyists have travelled to Baku as part of countries’ delegations
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
NEW: The "Agrizone" at COP30 is supposed to be a showcase for sustainable agriculture 🌳

But its sponsors are powerful agribusiness interests linked to deforestation and anti-conservation lobbying who have paid for visibility and "image gain"

Read more 👇:
COP30’s agriculture showcase sponsored by agribiz interests linked to deforestation and anti-conservation lobbying
Sponsors of the sustainable agriculture pavilion at COP30 will include pesticides giant Bayer, alleged by campaigners to be driving “massive deforestation” on the continent, and a branch of Brazil’s l...
unearthed.greenpeace.org
November 11, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
🔴 NEW 🔴

Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30

Interactive map shows the food & farming corporations, trade groups and initiatives at COP30 in Brazil and how these are set to navigate the summit

📝 @rachelsherrington.bsky.social & Gil Alessi👇

www.desmog.com/2025/11/10/m...
Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30
In the city of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil has kicked off the COP30 climate conference, a summit framed as a pivotal moment to reduce emissions and keep the Paris Agreement al...
www.desmog.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
Plans for intensive livestock farms in the UK could lead to over 35million more 🐷 + 🐔 farmed here each year.

Councils are green-lighting these operations despite with patchy or non-existent data.

✍️ for @desmog.com @theguardian.com on research by @sustainweb.org
www.desmog.com/2025/11/05/i...
Intensive Livestock Farms Fail to Declare Climate Impacts in ‘Emissions Scandal’
Plans for intensive livestock “megafarms” are omitting crucial climate impacts, it can be revealed. Campaigners last year celebrated a “beginning of the end” to polluting factory farming, after the la...
www.desmog.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
🔴 NEW 🔴

From regenerative agriculture to ‘efficiency is enough' and ‘we feed the world’ narratives - check out these 8 big greenwashing terms ahead of COP30 👇

📝 by @rachelsherrington.bsky.social & @hazelhealy.bsky.social

www.desmog.com/2025/10/26/b...
Look Out for These 8 Big Ag Greenwashing Terms at COP30
Food and farming companies will claim agriculture is the solution to the climate crisis at the Brazil summit — even though food drives a third of global warming.
www.desmog.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
Brilliant piece by @maximanzoni.bsky.social documenting industry-driven efforts to "rethink methane" in Latin America via the use of the GWP* metric, & illustrating how this new lens essentially serves to let major polluters off the hook sentientmedia.org/inside-big-a...
Methane, Money & Metrics: Inside Big Ag’s Plan to Hide Its Climate Impact in South America
The livestock industry is pushing to change how its methane emissions are measured in Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, with help from researcher Frank Mitloehner.
sentientmedia.org
August 2, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
New at DeSmog: @rachelsherrington.bsky.social reveals how the meat industry might have teamed up with prominent environmental groups to convince consumers that beef can be "climate friendly," even as the industry's emissions of planet-heating pollutants increase. #climatechange
Revealed: How the Meat Industry Uses Environmental Groups to Make Beef Seem Climate-Friendly
Expert says non-profit partners provide a ‘fairy dust’ of legitimacy to beef industry.
buff.ly
August 7, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
In Ingleside, Texas, chemical companies Yara + Enbridge have launched initiatives touching every aspect of life, from gifting children's schools to running a blood donation drive

The reason: they want to build a 'low-carbon' ammonia plant that resident say could cost their health and coastline 🧵
🔴 NEW 🔴

This Small Texas Town Is Fighting Back Against Big Ammonia

buff.ly/yyjJu7K

📝 @clarecarlile.bsky.social & @sarasneath.bsky.social in partnership with @texastribune.org
July 8, 2025 at 9:33 AM
🔴NEW: Major food firms like Nestlé, PepsiCo and JBS are overstating progress on their climate goals, a new report finds

Firms are criticised for a reliance on vague carbon removals, weak no-deforestation claims and a lack of progress on key transitions

www.desmog.com/2025/06/03/f...
Food Giants’ Climate Plans Lack Credibility, New Report Finds
Food firms are inflating their climate targets with carbon removals and weak deforestation claims, according to a report from the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch. With the COP30 climate s...
www.desmog.com
June 4, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
The EU’s largest fertiliser producer, Yara, is quietly relying on fracked shale gas from Texas to power “sustainable” ammonia production

Over the last 9 months, we traced Yara’s supply chain from the Permian shale Basin – known as a “carbon bomb” – to fertiliser bags in Europe’s fields 🧵
May 28, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
Just published in collaboration with The Guardian our two-year investigation linking Turkish seabass and seabream in UK supermarkets to devastating overfishing and social harms in Senegal!

www.desmog.com/2025/05/22/r...
With✍️ @hazelhealy.bsky.social on @desmog.bsky.social
Revealed: UK Supermarket Seabass Linked to Devastating Overfishing in Senegal
Waitrose, Co-op, Lidl, Asda and Aldi among retailers selling fish fed on west African catch
www.desmog.com
May 22, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Meat industry PR campaign may have fuelled backlash against EAT-Lancet planetary diet, leaked document shows

must-read from @clarecarlile.bsky.social 👇

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows
Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online
www.theguardian.com
April 11, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
the role of fossil capital in the rise of the far right in the US - and its consequences - are difficult to keep track of given the sheer pace of change. still, we should.
Billions of dollars in clean energy projects have been canceled since Donald Trump took office again — leaving thousands of jobs and the shift to clean energy in doubt.
A stunning number of electric vehicle, battery factories are being canceled
Billions of dollars in clean energy projects have been canceled since Donald Trump took office again.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 5, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
If the 2010s were marked by techno-solutionism, then the 2020s might be the decade of "natural solutionism". Both are flawed, disdain the regulatory state, and in both "expertise is treated as suspect, corrupt, or altogether illegitimate, with anecdotes and mantras replacing verifiable data"
The Flawed Ideology That Unites Grass-Fed Beef Fans and Anti-Vaxxers
From RFK Jr. to Hollywood A-listers and Democratic senators, people across the political spectrum are jumping onto the slippery slope of nature-based solutionism.
newrepublic.com
March 31, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
🔴 New: Supermarkets accused of major methane ‘blindspot’

- Report argues supermarkets will not meet climate pledges until “dismal lack of action” on supply chain emissions is addressed

www.desmog.com/2025/03/18/s...
Supermarkets Accused of Major Methane 'Blindspot’
Leading supermarkets are failing to address the methane pollution in their supply chains, a new report has found, putting their own climate pledges at risk. The study from environmental non-profits Ch...
www.desmog.com
March 18, 2025 at 3:19 PM
🔴 New: Supermarkets accused of major methane ‘blindspot’

- Report argues supermarkets will not meet climate pledges until “dismal lack of action” on supply chain emissions is addressed

www.desmog.com/2025/03/18/s...
Supermarkets Accused of Major Methane 'Blindspot’
Leading supermarkets are failing to address the methane pollution in their supply chains, a new report has found, putting their own climate pledges at risk. The study from environmental non-profits Ch...
www.desmog.com
March 18, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
ICYMI, over the weekend I published a new story looking at the close ties between the pharmaceutical and livestock industries, and how one of the larger pharma companies has ridiculed plant-based meat and worked to muddy the debate over livestock's carbon footprint.
One of the US’ larger pharma companies, Elanco, pushes many of the same (false) messages as the meat industry: livestock aren’t bad for the climate and plant-based meat isn't a climate solution. Why? It profits from selling antibiotics & other products to meat co's. www.vox.com/future-perfe...
Why Big Pharma wants you to eat more meat
The pharmaceutical industry helped build factory farming. Now it’s muddying the debate over meat’s carbon footprint.
www.vox.com
March 3, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
Brazilian beef and leather companies fall short in tackling deforestation, a study finds apnews.com/article/braz...
Brazilian beef and leather companies fall short in tackling deforestation, a study finds
The next United Nations climate conference will be held in Belem, the capital of an Amazon region where widespread deforestation has turned the surrounding rainforest from a vital carbon sink into a s...
apnews.com
December 12, 2024 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
Our new investigation found:

- Last year, the UK exported 8,500 tonnes of pesticides considered so hazardous they are banned here

- Including: enough bee-killing neonicotinoid thiamethoxam to spray an area larger than England

- Syngenta was responsible for 98% of these banned pesticide exports
‘Ultimate hypocrisy’: UK exported 8,500 tonnes of banned pesticides last year
unearthed.greenpeace.org
December 9, 2024 at 11:55 AM
NEW: An industry-backed emissions metric could ‘completely derail’ climate action if adopted by governments, campaigners warn

It comes the New Zealand government considers whether to adopt new climate goals based on the GWP* measure

My latest for @desmog.bsky.social

www.desmog.com/2024/12/06/i...
Industry-Backed Emissions Metric Could ‘Completely Derail’ Climate Action, Campaigners Warn
Governments have been cautioned against adopting a new methane metric that is “incompatible” with climate science and “penalises” low-income countries. A statement issued by more than 60 civil society...
www.desmog.com
December 7, 2024 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
🟡 NEW 🟡

Industry-backed Emissions Metric Could ‘Completely Derail’ Climate Action, Campaigners Warn

📝 @rachelsherrington.bsky.social
Industry-backed Emissions Metric Could ‘Completely Derail’ Climate Action, Campaigners Warn
Governments have been cautioned against adopting a new methane metric that is “incompatible” with climate science and “penalises” low-income countries. A statement issued by more than 60 civil society...
www.desmog.com
December 6, 2024 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
✨Just out: the @carbonbrief.org summary of what COP29 means for food, land and nature.

Carbon markets, deforestation, the Rio Trio, Indigenous rights, methane, greenwashing, new NDCs…it’s all in.

w/ @giulianaviglione.bsky.social @daisydunne.carbonbrief.org @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org Yanine Quiroz
COP29: Key outcomes for food, forests, land and nature at the UN climate talks in Baku - Carbon Brief
Carbon Brief explains how food, forests, land and nature featured inside and outside the negotiations at COP29.
www.carbonbrief.org
November 27, 2024 at 12:05 PM
Brazil, the next COP host, brought in the most lobbyists for Big Ag to COP29, sparking concerns about the direction of travel for COP30

Here @reporterbrasil.org.br looks deeper into my findings on the Brazilian delegation, and asks what it means for next year

reporterbrasil.org.br/2024/11/cop2...
COP29: delegação do Brasil inclui lobistas de JBS e Bayer
Brasil é o país com mais lobistas do agronegócio na Conferência da ONU sobre Mudanças Climáticas, realizada este ano no Azerbaijão; país leva representantes de gigantes da carne, laticínios e agrotóxi...
reporterbrasil.org.br
November 23, 2024 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by Rachel Sherrington
🔴 Hundreds of representatives of industrial agriculture accessed the UN climate talks again this year

It comes after UN experts called for major reforms to protect the summits from corporate interests

My latest for @desmog.bsky.social & @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Hundreds of lobbyists for industrial farming attend Cop29 climate summit
Nearly 40% of food sector lobbyists have travelled to Baku as part of countries’ delegations
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2024 at 12:41 PM
🔴 Hundreds of representatives of industrial agriculture accessed the UN climate talks again this year

It comes after UN experts called for major reforms to protect the summits from corporate interests

My latest for @desmog.bsky.social & @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Hundreds of lobbyists for industrial farming attend Cop29 climate summit
Nearly 40% of food sector lobbyists have travelled to Baku as part of countries’ delegations
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2024 at 12:41 PM
Meat, oil and pesticide industry lobbyists turned out in record numbers at Cop16 - my latest story with @clarecarlile.bsky.social and @hazelhealy.bsky.social covered in the Guardian here:

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Meat, oil and pesticide industry lobbyists turned out in record numbers at Cop16
Questions raised over influence after 1,261 business and industry delegates registered for biodiversity summit in Colombia
www.theguardian.com
November 14, 2024 at 10:22 AM