Dutch city to ban meat ads in world first claim

THE HAGUE: The Dutch city of Haarlem is set to become the first in the world to ban advertisements for most meat because of its impact on climate change, officials said on Wednesday.

The city of 160,000 people near Amsterdam has agreed to outlaw ads for intensively farmed meat on public places like buses, shelters and screens from 2024. The move was approved by the city council in November, but went unnoticed until last week when a councillor announced he had officially notified advertising agencies.

"It will be the first city in the Netherlands -- and in fact Europe and indeed the world -- to ban ‘bad’ meat ads in public places," Ziggy Klazes, councillor for the GroenLinks (Green-Left) party who drafted the motion, told AFP. She said it went against the city’s politics to "earn money by renting the city’s public space to products which accelerate global warming".