Reduce climate change? Eat less meat: Report

Consume less milk as well, says four-year study of impact of food on climate change

LONDON: People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid runaway climate change, a new report has warned.
The report, by the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), based at the University of Surrey, said total food consumption should be reduced, especially 'low nutritional value' treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.
It urged people to return to habits their mothers or grandmothers would have been familiar with - buying locally in-season products, cooking in bulk and in pots with lids or pressure cookers, avoiding waste and walking to the shops, The Guardian said.
The report is a product of a four-year study of the impact of food on climate change, and goes much further than any previous advice after mounting concern about the impact of the livestock industry on greenhouse gases and rising food prices.
Its author Tara Garnett warned that campaigns encouraging people to change their habits voluntarily were doomed to fail and urged the government to use caps on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pricing to ensure that changes were made.
These findings are in line with an investigation by the October edition of the Ecologist magazine, which found that arguments for people to go vegetarian to stop climate change and reduce pressure on rising food prices were exaggerated and would damage the developing world in particular, where many people depend on animals for essential food and other products.
Instead, it recommended cutting meat consumption by at least half and making sure animals were fed as much as possible on grass and food waste which could not be eaten by humans.
The head of the United Nations (UN) intergovernmental panel on climate change, Mr Rajendra Pachauri, also sparked global debate this month when he urged people to have at least one meat-free day a week.
The FCRN found that measured by production, the British food sector produces greenhouse gases equivalent to 33 million tonnes of carbon. Measured by consumption, the total rises to 43.3 million tonnes. Both figures work out at under one fifth of British emissions, but they exclude the indirect impact of actions such as clearing rainforest for cattle and crops, which other studies estimate would add up to 5 to 20 per cent of global emissions.
The report found that the meat and dairy sectors together accounted for just over half of those emissions.
It called for meat and dairy consumption to be cut in developed countries so that global production remains stable as the population grows to an estimated nine billion by 2050. At the same time, emissions from farms, transport, manufacturing and retail could be cut, it said.
The UN and other bodies recommend that developed countries should reduce total emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. However, the National Farmers' Union warned that its own study, with other industry players, published last year, found net emissions from agriculture could be cut by only up to 50 per cent.

For those of you who always eat burgers for lunch. This article is food for thought. Cut down on your meat, and ask for more vegetables.