Drought

Eating Meat and Climate Change

How does meat consumption impact our environment?

10.11.2021

A glass of milk for breakfast, spaghetti bolognese for lunch, a boiled egg and a couple of slices of salami for supper – this is a normal daily diet for many people. However, it contributes to global growth in the consumption of animal products. Especially in developing countries, the demand for meat and other animal-based products is massively on the rise.

According to forecasts, the demand for meat will double by 2050.

Not only do animals suffer as a result of this industry. Many people are unaware that increasing meat consumption has an effect on the climate and the environment.

Animal-based products are climate killers

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CO2e for 1 kg of beef from a beef heard (equal to driving 354 km with a diesel car)

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CO2e for 1 kg of lamb & mutton (equal to driving 100 km with a diesel car)

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CO2e for 1 kg of tofu (equal to driving 12 km with a diesel car)

More than 85 billion farmed land animals are slaughtered for meat each year worldwide2. The immense production of animal-based products, especially red meat and dairy, emits a lot of greenhouse gases, compared to plant-based foods3. Animal agriculture is the biggest contributor to two of the three major sources of anthropogenic GHG emissions: methane and nitrous oxide4.

We can’t continue like this. We must put an end to factory farming.

Watch our movie Eating the Future

With our multi-award-winning movie Eating the Future FOUR PAWS exposes the horrors of factory farming and the failures of our food system. But FOUR PAWS also wants to spark hope for a better future – a food system which is healthy for our planet, our animals and us.

It’s not the animals to blame

According to the FAO, farmed cattle (raised for both beef and milk) are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 62% of animal agriculture’s emissions5. This is only because we humans intensively breed them. Therefore, it is not a solution to shift meat consumption to smaller, non-ruminant animals i.e. chicken instead of beef as it might worsen animal welfare by affecting a substantially larger number of animals in worse keeping conditions.

Globally, according to the EAT-Lancet reference diet meat consumption must be reduced by at least 50% to provide the growing world population healthy, sustainable diet within planetary boundaries.

Additional Effects

  • The deforestation of woodland and tropical forests to create pastures or areas for growing animal feed such as soya.
  • Water shortage and pollution: a huge amount of water is needed in the various stages of meat production and the production of other animal-based products (e.g. 15,000 litres of water are used to produce just one kilogramme of beef). The overfertilisation of agricultural land as well as the use of pesticides and medicines lead to the pollution of water resources.
  • Biodiversity loss due to the deforestation of tropical forests and changes in grassland areas in order to create agricultural land.
Broiler chickens inside factory farming

Let's End Factory Farming


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Source

1. Pathways towards lower emissions (fao.org). https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a06a30d3-6e9d-4e9c-b4b7-29a6cc307208/content.
2. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/s#data/QCL (Livestock Primary 2022, Producing animals/slaughtered)

3. Global greenhouse gas emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plant-based foods - PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37117472/.
4. Breakdown of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions by sector - Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector.
5. FAO. Pathways towards lower emissions. FAO; 2023. https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cc9029en. doi:10.4060/cc9029en.

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