To Avoid Global Warming Stop Eating Meat and Cheese

To Avoid Global Warming Stop Eating Meat and Cheese
Fredrik Hedenus APRIL 1, 2014 nytimes.com

To avoid dangerous climate change and limit global warming to below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the level of preindustrial times – a target endorsed by the international community and the United States – global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 80 to 90 percent by the second half of this century. But even eliminating all carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and transportation sectors may not be enough to reach that target because greenhouse gases from food and agriculture, mainly nitrous oxide from agricultural soils and methane from livestock, will be too large.

By the second half of the century, there will be many more of us on this planet. Diets high in meat and cheese are expected to become more common. Even when factoring in expected productivity increases we estimate that global agricultural emissions could double in 50 to 60 years. This alone could make meeting the climate target essentially impossible.

Technological options to reduce agricultural emissions are not promising and offer at best a very uncertain path toward the climate target. A more risk-averse and powerful way of curbing emissions is to reduce beef consumption, and shift to other protein-rich food. Beef causes about 40 times higher greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of protein compared to beans, and around 10 times higher compared to chicken meat.

Today, the U.S. and the European Union have the highest meat consumption per capita in the world – and it continues to rise. In low- and mid-income countries, meat and dairy consumption increases along with their income levels. The longer these trends go on, the harder it will be to meet the climate target. Changing these trends will be an arduous task, and may take a long time, but rich countries could set the example by implementing measures to moderate their meat and dairy consumption.

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Abstract
For agriculture, there are three major options for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: 1) productivity improvements, particularly in the livestock sector; 2) dedicated technical mitigation measures; and 3) human dietary changes. The aim of the paper is to estimate long-term agricultural GHG emissions, under different mitigation scenarios, and to relate them to the emissions space compatible with the 2 °C temperature target. Our estimates include emissions up to 2070 from agricultural soils, manure management, enteric fermentation and paddy rice fields, and are based on IPCC Tier 2 methodology. We find that baseline agricultural CO2-equivalent emissions (using Global Warming Potentials with a 100 year time horizon) will be approximately 13 Gton CO2eq/year in 2070, compared to 7.1 Gton CO2eq/year 2000. However, if faster growth in livestock productivity is combined with dedicated technical mitigation measures, emissions may be kept to 7.7 Gton CO2eq/year in 2070. If structural changes in human diets are included, emissions may be reduced further, to 3–5 Gton CO2eq/year in 2070. The total annual emissions for meeting the 2 °C target with a chance above 50 % is in the order of 13 Gton CO2eq/year or less in 2070, for all sectors combined. We conclude that reduced ruminant meat and dairy consumption will be indispensable for reaching the 2 °C target with a high probability, unless unprecedented advances in technology take place.