Photo: Victuallers via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped. This adapted image is also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Shifting global food production to plant-based diets by 2050 could free up enough land for regrowing forests and grasslands to pull 332 to 547 billion tonnes of CO2 out of the air, a new study finds. That is equal to 99 to 163% of the remaining carbon budget for a two-in-three chance of limiting warming to 1.5C.
The study, led by Dr. Matthew Hayek of New York University with researchers including Professor William Ripple of Oregon State University, is published in Nature Sustainability. The team mapped the "carbon opportunity cost" of animal farming: the carbon that native vegetation could be storing on land now used to produce meat, dairy and eggs.
Hayek said in the New York University press release:
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.
Every plate of beans, lentils or tofu in place of beef helps leave a bit more room for nature to do its work.
It follows July's Oxford finding that a plant-rich diet would save 34% more lives than national guidelines, and the UN climate panel's call for plant-based diets.
Fewer cows, more forests: the climate math adds up.