Paper beats Rock. AI beats Meat. 🤖

Read time today: 2 minutes 29 seconds

Hi friend 👋,

it’s Friday morning. You are reading, VITAMIN C, the newsletter that helps you stay ahead in food and climate innovation.

This week: WTF climate financing, oysters as climate heroes and “Don’t look up” happening in real life.

Grab a coffee (or a healthy lemonade), and let’s dive in! 🍋

1. [Food for Thought] 📉30% Emissions but only 2.5% Funding. WTF?

Looking at tables is often boring. But this one has some real useful insight:

Food systems create 30% of global emissions but only get 2.5% of climate funding 🥲- a drop from 3% in 2017.

Why does this matter?

1️⃣ Eating planet-friendly (hello, EAT-Lancet diet!👋) cuts 5x more emissions than solar panels.

2️⃣ 70% of the $15T in "hidden" costs from food systems come from unhealthy diets.

3️⃣ And yet… governments spend trillions on fossil fuel subsidies and $670 billion annually on harmful agricultural subsidies.

COP29's $300B climate finance pledge by 2035 is a start, but nowhere near enough.

Time to put food systems on the climate A-list.

📖 Read the report here.

2. [Climate Heroes] 🦪 Who Knew Oysters Were This Cool?

Oysters aren’t just for fancy dinners—they’re ecological powerhouses!

Here are 3 reasons we need to rethink their role in protecting our planet:

💧 1. Ultimate Water Filters

• One adult oyster filters 200 liters (53 gallons) of water daily—yes, a bathtub’s worth!

• An acre of reef? Filters 340 mio liters (90 mio gallons) of seawater every day.

🌊 2. Coastal Guardians

• Oysters reduce wave energy by up to 76% during storms.

• Oysters save coastal communities $23,000 per meter in sea defense costs annually.

🌡️ 3. Carbon Champions

• Oyster store 1.7 tons of CO2 per acre annually—like offsetting 7.000 mk miles of driving.

• Clearer water = healthier seagrass = even more carbon storage.

The scary fact: natural oyster populations have declined by 85% globally in the last 100 years.

It’s about time we rethink oysters as climate heroes.

3. [Mobility] 🚅 Germany's €49 Ticket: A Climate Game-Changer?

Germany’s €49 “Deutschland-Ticket” was a game-changer the last two years: unlimited regional travel, cheap, and planet-friendly. The results?

• Train journeys (30 km+) up 30%.

• Car usage down 7.6%.

• 6.7 million tonnes of CO2 saved in year one = 4.7% of German transport emissions

But as of 2025 the price will jump to €58.

Doesn’t sound like much, right?

But €9 difference means a lot for people at minimum wage. And this bump is projected to:

• reduce train travel by 14%.

• Increase car usage again by 3.5%.

So just a 9€ difference and half of the saved emissions are up again.

🔢 Crunch the numbers here (in German)

4.  [Good News] 🤖🥩 Got Meat Questions? Ask This AI.

Got questions about cultivated meat?

Meet The Cultivator—an AI chatbot by World Animal Protection and PubTrawlr that’s here to answer them all. 🌱

Why it’s not just a nerdy Q&A bot:

Cultivated meat could slash carbon emissions and end animal suffering.

The Cultivator makes it easy to access cutting-edge research, industry trends, and insights—all at your fingertips.

Curious to test it out? Dive into The Cultivator 🤖 here.

 5. [Must Watch] 🎬 Don’t Look Up: A Scene Too Real?

Ever felt like you’re living Don’t Look Up in real life?

A real-life British TV moment captured the absurdity of explaining the climate crisis to those who just won’t move.

It’s painfully relatable - denial and indifference - but also a reminder: the stakes are too high to stop pushing for change.

🌍 So, let’s keep the conversation going. Even when it feels impossible.

Happy Friday
Lia

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