Phasing Out Animal Farming Could Deliver Half the Emission Cuts Needed to Hold Warming to 2C

Phasing out animal farming could deliver half of the emission cuts needed to keep global warming to 2C, a new climate model suggests. Through the end of the century, it would have the same effect as cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 25 billion tonnes every year.

Professor Michael Eisen of UC Berkeley and Professor Patrick Brown of Stanford modeled what happens when methane and nitrous oxide from livestock fall away and land used for grazing and feed returns to forest and grassland. Brown is the founder of Impossible Foods and Eisen an adviser, which the paper discloses. The peer-reviewed study is published in PLOS Climate.

The double effect is fast. Because methane breaks down within decades, a 15-year phaseout would pause the net rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years and offset 68% of carbon dioxide emissions this century, even if nothing else changed.

Reducing or eliminating animal agriculture should be at the top of the list of potential climate solutions.

That is Brown, speaking in the Stanford release. The authors acknowledge the shift would need major investment to support people who make a living from livestock.

It builds on last month's finding that rich nations switching to plant-rich diets would cut farm emissions by 61% and the 2020 study showing plant-based diets could pull up to 547 billion tonnes of CO2 from the air.

The fastest climate win might be on our plates.