Emissions impossible: How big meat and dairy are heating up the planet
It is past time to regulate the industry and redirect the massive subsidies and other public expenditures that currently support the big meat and dairy conglomerates towards local food and farming systems capable of looking after people and the planet.
GRAIN: ‘More than a decade ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published the first global accounting of greenhouse emissions from meat and dairy, demonstrating global livestock’s role in exacerbating climate change. Subsequent studies have backed up this initial assessment.[6] Despite these findings, the biggest meat and dairy companies remain committed to growth levels that are completely at odds with the agreement reached in Paris in 2015 by the world’s governments to keep the global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees Celsius (°C),” with the goal of limiting it to 1.5 °C…
Unlike their counterparts in the energy sector, the big meat and dairy companies have thus far escaped public scrutiny of their contribution to climate change… The world’s biggest meat and dairy companies could surpass Exxon, Shell and BP as the world’s biggest climate polluters within the next few decades. At a time when the planet must dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, these global animal protein giants are driving consumption by ramping up production and exports… It is thus critical that big meat and dairy companies be held directly accountable for the upstream supply chain emissions, and denied the ability to shift blame (and costs) onto their farmer suppliers or the public.
As this report has noted, cheap meat and dairy comes at a high cost due to social, environmental and animal welfare problems that continue to be under-regulated. In addition, this production is only made possible because the corporations receive an indirect subsidy from taxpayers in the form of government-funded price supports that keep grain cheap. It is past time to regulate the industry and redirect the massive subsidies and other public expenditures that currently support the big meat and dairy conglomerates towards local food and farming systems capable of looking after people and the planet.
We are not going to achieve these radical transformations of our food system without a fight with the big meat and dairy companies. These are powerful actors with deep political connections, working hand in hand with governments to protect their interests (see Box 4). Breaking their grip will require a big, collective movement of farmers, workers and consumers. This is a movement that has been building for some time but has struggled to overcome the political power of the corporations. Climate change brings a new urgency to our organising efforts. SOURCE…
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