But it is not surprising. Many governments have avoided
the issue and there is a paucity of related policies and plans.
Public awareness is poor. A 2014 worldwide survey by
Ipsos MORI found twice as many people believed transport
was a bigger contributor to global warming than livestock. A
2016 study from the Netherlands found that only 12 percent
of the Dutch population and 6 percent of Americans were
cognisant that cutting down meat could impact climate change.
Some experts say that the problem may be bigger than
estimated. In 2009, Worldwatch Institute, a Washington
DC-based think tank, released a report that estimated,
controversially, that the livestock sector was tied to 51 percent
of all GHGs.
“Agriculture in general has received much less attention
in climate negotiations and among environmentalists, even
though today’s heavily industrialised agriculture is a major
GHG emitter,” says Worldwatch researcher Wanqing Zhou.
The reasons for this, she says, include a lack of
understanding of agriculture’s emission sources and possible
“political and economic resistance” to the issue. Another
reason, say some environmentalists, is the fierce lobbying of
the meat industry.R ising dem a nd
Global consumption of meat is forecast to grow 76 percent by
2050, says the British thinktank Chatham House. The nexus
of this growth is Asia; a typical “nutrition transition” trend is
expected amid rising incomes and a burgeoning population.
The Meat Atlas estimates 80 percent of the meat sector’s
growth will be in Asia by 2022. What was once a treat a decade
or so ago is now a staple part of many people’s diet.
In China, meat consumption is six times what it was in 1978,
and is rising, says the WildAid report “Eating for Tomorrow”.
Beef was once so rare that it was called “millionaire’s meat”.
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