Consumers Should Cut Meat & Milk Intake To Combat Climate Change

Consumers should cut meat and milk intake to combat climate change
Consumers will have to satisfy themselves with four small portions of meat and one litre of milk a week to slow down escalating climate change, a major new report has warned.
By Aislinn Simpson
30 Sep 2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3107696/Consumers-should-cut-meat-and-milk-intake-to-combat-climate-change.html

Meat and dairy production is responsible for eight per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, a new report suggests
The study also recommends a cut in consumption of low nutritional value foods such as alcohol, chocolate and sweets, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by their production, along with a return to wartime practices of shopping on foot, buying local products and cooking in bulk.

It concedes that people are unlikely to make such changes voluntarily, and so suggests caps on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and carbon pricing to control what food is available at what price.

Conducted by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, the four-year study is one of the most thorough of its kind.

It has been prompted by growing concern about the impact of food production and consumption on the changing global climate.

It estimates that food produced in the UK accounts for 18.5 per cent of the country's total emissions while food consumed in the UK - produced at home and abroad - accounts for 19 per cent.

Meat and dairy production alone is responsible for eight per cent of our total greenhouse gas emissions, it says, and over half of food-related emissions, followed by fruit and vegetables accounting for around 2.5 per cent of UK total emissions.

It also singles out alcohol, which is responsible for around 1.5 per cent of total emissions but contributes little in nutritional value.

"We may need to reduce consumption of such foods if we are to reduce the GHG intensity of what we consume," the report reads.

However, it concedes that this approach "raises enormous questions and accusations of nannystate misery-guts spoilsportism".

Agriculture - principally methane produced by sheep and cattle - is responsible for generating the most emissions through food production, followed by manufacturing, transport, cooking and refrigeration by consumers and packaging.

It recommends that people in the UK should cut their consumption of meat from an average of 1.6 kg (3.5lb) a week and milk from 4.2 litres (8.8 pints) a week to 500g (1lb) of meat and one litre of milk (2.1 pints).

At present, we eat an equivalent of six sausages, two chicken breasts, 100g of ham (3.5oz), eight rashers of bacon and two burgers a week, washed down with three litres of milk, 100g of cheese, and a little cream.

Under the stricter regime, we would eat one quarter-pound burger, two sausages, three rashers of bacon and one chicken breast, along with a litre of milk and 100g of cheese.

The UN has estimated that our consumption of meat and dairy products will have doubled by 2050, not only because of a growing population but because people will are expected to eat more, not less, animal-derived foods.

Tara Garnett, the report's author, said that if the UN's target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 is to be achieved, we must instead drastically change our diet, and increase production efficiency and the development of renewable fuels.

"If we don't act now, it may be too late and very much more expensive to act later," she said.