What does eating meat have to do with global warming?

Curbing the world’s huge and increasing appetite for meat is essential to avoid devastating climate change, according to many studies.

Hello! What has eating the delicious meat got to do with climate change?

You might want to know this fact: Estimates suggest that the global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined!

The total emissions from global livestock sector alone represents 15% of all human greenhouse gas emissions. Cattle (raised for both beef and milk) are the animal species most responsible for the most emissions, representing about 65% of the livestock sector’s emissions.

How exactly are livestock industry responsible for greenhouse gas emissions? In the following ways:

• Feed production and processing, including land use changes that accompany these, result in large CO2 emissions
• Enteric fermentation from ruminants – essentially their burps, farts and their waste – also directly and indirectly result in greenhouse gas emissions. While cattle burps and farts comprise significant portions of methane and thus is a direct contribution to greenhouse gases, animal waste is an indirect emitter of methane because, when these waste decay, they get converted to methane or to CO2.
• There is some extent of greenhouse gas emissions from this industry attributable to the processing and transportation of animal products, but this is only about 10%. The first two contribute almost 90% of the greenhouse gases emitted by the livestock industry

Some peer-reviewed studies have estimated that, without severe cuts to meat eating trend, agricultural emissions will take up the entire world’s carbon budget by 2050, with livestock a major contributor. This would mean every other sector, including energy, industry and transport, would have to be zero carbon, which is nearly impossible.

So, essentially, it is a good idea for you to cut down on your meat eating.

But this advice, not surprisingly, is not going down well with the nice folks on our planet. Past calls to cut meat eating by high-profile figures have been controversial.

Why am I not surprised?