Our addiction to meat is killing the planet — it’s time for change

The streets of New York City were a hive of activity last week, with global leaders ending a summer of record-breaking heat, floods and wildfires with a trip to New York for Climate Week and the United Nations General Assembly. But as many important discussions as there were about energy and fossil fuels, one topic needed to be higher on the agenda: the devastating impact of intensive animal agriculture on our planet.  

It is increasingly evident that high levels of meat consumption are associated with a rapidly deteriorating climate. Livestock farming accounts for around 20 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions — that’s more than the exhaust emissions from the world’s cars, trucks, planes and ships combined. Large swaths of rainforest are being cut down to create cow pastures or soybean fields for feed. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that around 80 percent of deforested areas in the Amazon are now used for cattle grazing, reducing the ability of the planet’s lungs to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.  

The problem is only worsening because of expected changes in population and income levels, which drive the food system’s environmental effects to levels far beyond a safe operating space for humanity. Research suggests that even if the world stopped using fossil fuels today, our current food system makes keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius impossible.  

Industry-led tweaks will not be enough. Mitigation techniques (such as improved manure management) and productivity improvements can reduce emissions, but supply-side measures will be insufficient on their own to achieve an adequate reduction. 

This is why the organization I lead, Compassion in World Farming, is calling for a dramatic reduction in U.S. meat consumption. America is the world’s leading consumer of meat. We eat about 233.3g per person per day, according to the FAO. That’s more than any other country and the equivalent of two burger patties or four sausages daily.  

But heavy meat consumption is driving us toward extinction. Not only is it responsible in large part for extreme weather events, it is also a significant contributor to water scarcity and biodiversity loss. Reducing meat consumption would not only help to alleviate these burdens but also allow us to redirect precious resources toward more sustainable agricultural practices and forest preservation. 

Several years ago, 37 scientists from 16 countries working in various fields, from human health and agriculture to political science and environmental sustainability, formed the EAT-Lancet Commission. Along with other suggested measures, such as halving food loss and waste and improving food production practices, the commission developed global scientific targets for healthy diets, or what became known as the “Planetary Health Diet.” 

This diet recommends a range of 0-86 grams of meat consumption per person per day to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement — the international climate change treaty adopted in 2015. That’s a long way from the 233.3 grams of meat currently consumed daily by the average American.  

In fact, our new research lays out the stakes in the bluntest terms yet: If the United States is to meet our climate goals, we need to reduce meat consumption not a little, but a lot: by 82 percent. It may seem impossible, but it’s not.  

For us to significantly reduce meat consumption, obviously individual diet change is one way to get there. Goodness knows we need it; scientific studies have repeatedly linked high meat intake to a host of personal health issues, including heart disease, obesity, diabetes and certain types of cancer. But governments and institutions have their roles to play, too. 

Governments can play an active role, from new regulatory approaches, such as meat taxes; subsidies for plant-based innovation; and ensuring a competitive landscape for meat alternatives, such as by collaborating with industry through marketing strategies and mobilizing the international finance and trade communities, where so much of the support for harmful industrial agricultural practices stems comes from.  

We can also stop the massive subsidies going to industrial agriculture and meat production, including in the upcoming farm bill, to be voted on by year’s end.  

Institutions and municipalities can use their purchasing power, as cities like New York City have done, to transform what foods are sourced and served at scale.  

And all parties — from our families at home shopping for food to international institutions like the U.N. — can acknowledge the urgency of transforming how and what we eat as a climate solution.  

National governments and other policy-setting institutions ignore the overwhelming evidence that meat consumption is a primary driver of the climate crisis and significantly impacts our ability to limit the planet’s warming to sustainable levels. Without a dramatic reduction in U.S. meat consumption, we will be unable to avert a climate catastrophe. 

Ben Williamson is the United States director of Compassion in World Farming.