Rich nations must eat less meat to tackle climate change - campaigners

(Eco Business, 19 Oct 2018) The average person in Britain eats more than three times the government’s recommended 70 grams of red or processed meat each day.

Rich countries should encourage consumers to eat less meat and help farmers become more environmentally-friendly, campaigners said on Tuesday as pressure mounts to limit global warming.

Livestock - largely cattle raised for beef and milk - are responsible for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says.

“If we want earth’s temperature rise to stay below 2 degrees, especially below 1.5 degrees … then we need to tackle this overconsumption of animal products,” said Nusa Urbancic, campaign director of Changing Markets Foundation, a lobby group.

The world risks sweltering heatwaves, extreme rainfall and shrinking harvests unless unprecedented efforts are made to keep the Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the United Nations said last week.

Meat consumption is more than double the recommended levels for healthy diets in the United States and much of Europe, Changing Markets Foundation and Washington-based Mighty Earth said in a report calling for reform of the food industry.

Cutting animal products from the diet would be a “relatively easy and cheap way” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and free up land for conservation and storing carbon, they said.

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Eco Business, 19 Oct 2018: Rich nations must eat less meat to tackle climate change - campaigners