Switching meat for plant protein foods like beans and nuts could remove a decade of CO2 emissions, study finds

STUDY: Switching meat for plant protein foods such as lentils, beans, and nuts could remove more than a decade of our carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

JANE CLINTON: Switching meat for plant protein foods such as lentils, beans, and nuts could remove more than a decade of our carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, according to research. In the study, scientists analysed and mapped areas where extensive production of animal-sourced food, which requires 83 per cent of the earth’s agricultural land, suppresses native vegetation, including forests. They highlighted places where changing what people grow and eat could free up space for ecosystems to regrow, thereby offsetting our carbon dioxide emissions…

According to study’s authors, vegetation regrowth could remove as much as nine to 16 years of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions, if demand for meat were to drastically reduce in the coming decades along with its massive land requirements. Removing that amount of CO2, they added, would “effectively double the earth’s rapidly shrinking carbon budget”.

Matthew Hayek, the principal author of the study and an assistant professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies said… “We can think of shifting our eating habits toward land-friendly diets as a supplement to shifting energy, rather than a substitute. Restoring native forests could buy some much-needed time for countries to transition their energy grids to renewable, fossil-free infrastructure”. SOURCE…

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