Animal Emissions

The year is 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic is nearing its peak. As the world continues to recover from disruptions to the global economy. A new record is set as global greenhouse emissions increase to 53.8 (Gt CO2eq). While global emissions continue to rise, no country is close to reaching the 1.5°C limit set up by the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.

Under the Climate Paris Accords 195 of the 196 nation states represented in the UN came to an agreement of limiting global emissions to just under 1.5°C. An ambitious target set by the nations around the world. However, as of 2024 no major country has come close to reaching this target. It's estimated that in order for there to be a 67% chance of staying under the 1.5°C limit. Total global emissions from 2020-2100 would need to stay under 500 billion tons of CO2 eq. (Gt CO2eq.) As of 2024 most scientists predict that we will pass this metric within the next 5 years.

Similarly for there to be a 50% chance of staying under the 1.5°C limit set by the accords, global emissions would need to stay under 705 billion tons of CO2 equivalent emissions. Estimates today by scientists put us at breaking this limit by the mid 2030s.

As it currently stands the Meat & Dairy Industry is set to produce approximately 811 billion tons of emissions between 2020 and 2100. With Meat and Dairy accounting for around 14.5% of all emissions and more than half of all global food emissions. Meat and Dairy Emissions alone set up a future where the Paris Climate Accords are never met.

Accounting for just the total food emissions alone the carbon budgets for staying under 1.5°C is out of reach. While there is hardly anything left for anything else under 2°C. Without cuts to total food emissions reaching the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Climate Accord is fundamentally impossible.

With total food emissions reaching 1356 Gt by 2100 assuming that there was 67% chance to avoid 2.0°C. There would only be 49 Gt remaining for non-food based emissions. In 2022 global energy emissions alone reached a new high of 53.8 Gt. On the current trajectory we could break 2.0°C could happen as early as the 2040s. With food and especially animal related emissions contributing a significant factor to this.

Is it really possible to stay under the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Climate Accord? By the mid 21st century we could use up the remaining 1816 Gts of our carbon budget left for a 50% chance to stay under 2.0°C. The world is getting warmer at anunsustainable rate. Without any change to current emission rates the average world temperature could easily surpace 3-4°C by the year 2100.

Globally it's estimated that food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. With animals being responsible for approximately 37% of all human-caused methane emissions and 65% of all agriculturally related nitrogen emissions. More than half of all food related emissions are related to the use of animals.

It shouldn't be too suprising to see that in comparison to the vast majority of crops emissions from animals such as cows and chickens to fish and seafood contribute so heavily towards greenhouse gas emissions. There can be other issues as well such as overfishing that is already an issue in many parts of the world. But even considering this emissions of livestock can be unequal.

When we take a look at total greenhouse emissions per kg of beef something interesting to note is how much of a difference developing countries had in emissions in comparison to more developed ones. In a study from 2013 we see places such as Latin America emissions for beef production were producing almost two times more emissions per kg of beef. For those in with even less developed infrastructure the amount changes to as much as ten times the amount of emissions.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Beef Production

Source: Herrero et al., 2013 PNAS 110: 20888-20893

Issues like these are important to point out especially considering the needs of developing economies. The production of beef like many other meats is expected to increase considerably according to projections done by groups like the FAO. But the emissions for many of these animals aren't as simple as they seem and reducing emissions is an issue that should concern us all to reduce the impacts of climate change.

For many of these countries a transition can be unaffordable. In many cases while the number of animals is increasing as a result of growing populations. However, it's still important to note issues such as sampling biases and to note that the study in question is more than a decade old now.

These are issues that currently are being ignored or looked over as the majority of the focus by most organizations is on the reduction of fossil fuel based green house emissions. Which are very important and make up a significant portion of greenhouse emissions. But food emissions is still an issue even if it can be hard to talk about given that for many countries it can be about their future development in dealing with issues such as hunger and food insecurity.