How meat became a ‘villain’ in climate change and entered the COP26 crosshairs

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Meat, especially beef, has gained a reputation as a “villain” in the fight against global warming and has been targeted at discussions at COP26, the United Nations conference on climate change that runs until November 13 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Bovine protein is identified as the food that contributes the most to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado, according to the latest UN climate report.

An agreement to reduce methane by 30% by 2030 was signed by dozens of countries, including Brazil, during the COP26 negotiations. The understanding hits the Brazilian agricultural sector in full, as methane gas emissions in the cattle herd accounted for 17% of all greenhouse gases in the country, according to estimates by the Climate Observatory.

But there are those who go further and advocate reducing or even cutting completely the consumption of meat as a way to combat warming. A survey by the University of Oxford showed that beef production is, among all foods, the one that emits the most greenhouse gases.

According to this study, even a portion of sustainably produced meat is more polluting than a portion of vegetable protein produced without taking into account the best practices for reducing emissions.

But is cutting meat from the diet even necessary to control climate change? And why does beef protein production produce so many emissions?

Vegetable diet x carnivorous diet

A preliminary United Nations report, prepared for COP26, says that adopting a diet with less meat and more plant foods would help fight climate change.

The document, which BBC News had access to, is prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main global body responsible for organizing scientific knowledge on climate change and guiding actions to combat them.

According to the IPCC, meat production is one of the main factors behind deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado. This is because native vegetation is often cleared to make way for pastures or soy plantations, which feed herds.

The preliminary report says that “vegetable-based diets can reduce emissions by up to 50% compared to the average Western diet.”

In turn, a study by the University of Oxford, which calculated the average global emissions involved in the production of 40 of the main foods, with data from 40 thousand farms around the world, reached the conclusion that beef and lamb are the foods that more degrade the environment.

According to the study, published in the journal Science, a quarter of all polluting gas emissions come from food production. But there are huge differences between the impact different foods have on global warming.

Meat and other animal-derived products are responsible for more than half of the emissions, although they only contribute one fifth of the calories consumed by the world’s population.

But it is possible to greatly reduce the climate impact of meat production by adopting relatively simple practices, such as cattle rotation in pasture areas, food supplementation and slaughtering the animal when it is younger.

After all, it is not simple to replace the consumption of meat in countries like Brazil, where animal protein, for cultural and production aspects, is part of the daily life of a large part of the population. In addition, socioeconomic difficulties in different parts of the world make it difficult to substitute animal protein for vegetable protein.

“It’s easy to tell the consumer to pay attention to the proportion of greenhouse gas in food here in England, the United States, Germany or Belgium. Will tell this to a person who lives in Rio de Janeiro and who is looking for a thrown bone out in the garbage to be able to eat protein,” Paulo Artaxo, professor of applied physics at the University of São Paulo, told BBC News Brasil, one of the scientists who are part of the IPCC.

But why does beef generate so much pollution?

Emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, the two main greenhouse gases, occur in three ways in meat production: with the deforestation of areas used for pasture, by soil erosion when pasture is poorly maintained, and by the gases released by cattle in the process of gastric fermentation of the food he eats.

In the case of deforestation, the felling of trees generates the release of CO2 stored by these plants in the photosynthesis process. Plants function as carbon dioxide stores, because they absorb this gas from the atmosphere and transform it into sugars for the functioning of their metabolism. With the felling of trees, new absorptions of carbon dioxide no longer occur, in addition to releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere by burning or decomposing the cut wood.

Another impact of livestock is on the erosion of soil used for pasture. According to Isabel Garcia Drigo, manager of the Climate and Emissions area at the Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification Institute (Imaflora), fertile soil also absorbs and stores CO2. If there is no care in keeping the grass and plants where the oxen circulate, the soil will lose vegetation and minerals that make it fertile, thus losing its ability to store carbon dioxide.

“We have 81 million hectares of degraded pastures, with soil uncovered by grass. Areas without a plant component, whether grass or trees, are emitting polluting gases. These degraded pastures are emitting 39 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere”, Drigo explained to BBC News Brasil.

The third polluting factor in livestock is associated with the release of methane gas by what is popularly known as “burping of the ox”. In the process of digesting grass and other foods, the ox releases methane gas.

In 2020, Brazilian agricultural emissions increased 2.5% compared to 2019 for a counter-intuitive reason linked to the “belch of the ox”. The consumption of meat in the country decreased due to the pandemic and the economic crisis.

As a result, fewer cattle were slaughtered for consumption and head of cattle increased by 2.6 million, which, in turn, increased methane emissions from so-called enteric fermentation.

How to reduce this negative impact of meat?

The good news for those who are concerned about the environment but want to continue eating meat is that, depending on the care taken in the production process, the volume of emissions can be considerably reduced.

Therefore, several scientists argue that the focus of climate meetings should be on the meat manufacturer, not the consumer. That is, in agreements that demand sustainable production practices and prevent trade in products linked to deforestation.

During the COP26 meetings in Glasgow, two agreements were signed that could help reduce the polluting impact of meat production. One of them focuses on protecting forests and plans to bring deforestation to a halt in the world by 2030.

Among the parts of this agreement is the defense of regulatory and tracking mechanisms to prevent meat linked to forest clearing from reaching international trade. The other agreement provides for the reduction of methane gas in agriculture by 30% by 2030.

This means that Brazilian slaughterhouses and producers will have to adopt sustainable practices to ensure a lower impact of livestock on the environment.

Isabel Garcia Drigo, from Imaflora, highlights three measures that can help to significantly reduce emissions in livestock: rotating the pasture, alternating the location of oxen from one pasture to another so that the vegetation has time to recover; use food supplements to reduce the presence of grass in the feed of oxen and, with that, methane emissions in gastric fermentation; and take care of soil fertility, using nutrients and legumes.

“Of course, you will always have some emission, but you can reduce a lot if you use pasture management, cattle feeding management with food supplementation and a reduction in the animal’s lifespan. The younger the cattle is slaughtered, the better for the climate, because he will spend less time living, eating and producing methane,” says the manager of Imaflora.

For Paulo Artaxo, one of the authors of the UN report on climate change, when debating targets, it is necessary to prioritize measures. And, according to him, the focus currently should not be on cutting meat consumption, but on making production less polluting.

“It is important to make it clear that there was no mention of a reduction in meat consumption at the climate meeting, at COP26. That is not the issue. The issue is to improve livestock productivity with lower greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

“In Africa, you have over 1 billion people who don’t have the income for a diet with a high content of animal or vegetable protein. There can’t be a resolution, for example, that touches on this issue (of determining reduction in meat consumption) , because obviously people who today do not have the income to have a high animal protein diet have the right to want that”, he defends.

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