cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/climate/p/1398372/climate-warming-methane-emissions-from-the-worlds-biggest-livestock-companies-are-bigge
Ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Brazil, advocacy groups are pushing for companies and governments to set meaningful emissions targets to lower emissions from livestock.
The world’s biggest meat and dairy companies are responsible for emitting more climate-warming methane than all of the countries in the European Union and United Kingdom combined, according to a new assessment published Monday.
They looked at 45 major livestock and dairy companies, finding that they generated about 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023—roughly the same amount as reported for Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest oil producer.
That’s a great “silver bullet” answer but not realistic. By all means it’s worth encouraging but you’re not getting there any time soon.
In the meantime, farming fewer ruminants helps as well as making progress in that direction. And for those ruminants we are still farming, food additives to modify their digestive products is a clear win. And if that makes animals more expensive to eat, maybe we start a virtuous cycle toward eating fewer animals