At this year’s United Nations climate summit, more than 100 world leaders agreed to make farm and food systems a key part of plans to combat climate change, seeking improvements in a sector that accounts for nearly a third of planet-warming emissions.
Given that more than half of these emissions come from livestock farming, meat and dairy are at the forefront of many agricultural discussions at COP28 in Dubai. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization added to these talks with an updated report on ways to reduce livestock emissions.
“You can’t achieve climate targets without doing something about the system, and in this case, livestock,” said Francesco Tubiello, FAO senior statistician who worked on the report. He briefly talks about eating less meat, but mostly highlights ways the meat industry can increase productivity and efficiency.
Change will not be easy. The meat industry, like fossil fuel producers, joined the talks to protect its own interests, including portraying its practices as “sustainable nutrition,” according to one report. One potential competitor, alternative meat, has gone through a rough patch after initial excitement and investment.
Moreover, although meat’s contribution to emissions has received more attention, there are still consumers who are not very interested in changing their eating habits.
“The reality is that Americans are eating as much meat now as they did 50 years ago,” said Maureen Ogle, a historian and author of In Meat We Trust, which chronicles the history of the meat industry in America.
Ogle said American producers have pushed back forcefully over the years against anything that threatens their markets — from a proposal to add “Meatless Mondays” to national dietary guidelines to research reports highlighting the health dangers of eating too much red meat.
The Guardian and DeSmog reported last month that the meat industry was planning a major attendance at COP28 to spread the message that meat is good for the environment. News outlets cited documents produced by the Global Meat Alliance, an industry-funded group, with messages such as that animal grazing can help maintain healthy soils and meat can help food-insecure countries.
The alliance told The Guardian that its work “involves visibility into intergovernmental events that are often dominated by anti-meat rhetoric”. In a statement emailed to the AP, the group said it appreciated the focus on food and agriculture in global agendas such as COP28.
“We welcome clear rules or standards for reducing agricultural emissions in these moments, and the industry stands ready to support these efforts while maintaining its place in the value chain,” the statement said.
Wilson Warren, a history professor at Western Michigan University, said many governments around the world have long promoted meat and transformed cultural meat-eating habits. This has turned meat into an industry fueled by multinational corporations worth billions of dollars. In the United States, subsidies pay farmers to overproduce so meat can be sold more cheaply to urban populations, Ogle said.
In both the United States and the European Union, animal farming receives significantly more public financial support and lobbying attention than meat alternatives, according to a Stanford University study this summer. That’s a problem because better consumer options are needed, said co-author Simona Vallone, a researcher at Sustainable San Mateo County.
“We are in this delicate period where we have to make decisions at the government level and also at the global level,” Vallone said. said. If our goal is to reduce emissions quickly, “we don’t have much time to change our system,” he added.
Food systems were the focus of some demonstrators. Vegan activist Lei Chu said it was important for people to consider how important what they eat is to the world.
“If this action is killing our world, we must change it,” he said.
Jason Weller, global chief sustainability officer for Brazil-based JBS, one of the world’s largest meat producers, said “the narrow-minded focus on reducing meat consumption does not reflect reality or science.” Efficiency improvements have the biggest impact on reducing emissions, he said, citing the FAO report.
Asked whether people in countries like the United States should reduce meat consumption to stay within agreed-upon warming limits, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack turned to discussing nutritional safety, product labeling and consumer education, which he said would “help create a market” for consumers. Decisions that will accelerate and direct change.”
Experts have said it is more realistic for people in rich countries to eat slightly less red meat, rather than everyone giving up meat altogether. “The emissions intensity of beef and non-ruminant animals, pork and poultry in the United States is quite striking,” said Tom Hertel, distinguished professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University.
At a side event at COP28, Lawrence Haddad of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition agreed. “People in the global north cannot lecture people in the global south about eating less meat,” he said.
Meanwhile, organizations such as FAO and private companies also say that making the current system more efficient can be part of the solution. FAO’s report includes sections on improving animals through selective breeding and adapting animal nutrition to reduce methane emissions. Ruminant animals, such as cows, emit methane due to the functioning of their digestive systems, but changing their diet may help somewhat.
The agriculture declaration signed by world leaders at the beginning of COP28 is a loose commitment, not a binding agreement. Ruth Davis, a former adviser to the British government’s COP26 food and nature team, said leaders “must support change in official climate negotiations”.
Policymakers should focus on improving enforcement of potentially misleading sustainability claims, as well as better incentivizing farmers to implement truly green practices, said Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group.
He said: “Wouldn’t it be better if major meat producers worked with groups like EWG to make sure that those scarce USDA conservation dollars are going towards practices that change how we feed animals, how we manage their waste, how we treat their movements, how we fertilize their feed?”
But while companies and governments play a role, Purdue’s Hertel agrees with Ogle that consumers are at the center of the system.
“For a lot of people, it probably comes down to cost,” Hertel said of choosing conventional meat at the grocery store. If meat alternatives were much cheaper and tasted about the same, “I think you’d see more movement in that direction,” he said.
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Associated Press reporter Joshua Bickel contributed to this report from Dubai.
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Find more information about AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment.
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Follow Melina Walling on X: @MelinaWalling.
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