Livestock Accounts for Half of Greenhouse Gases, Study Claims

By Rudy Ruitenberg

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) — Livestock production accounts for at least half of human-caused greenhouse-gases emissions, according to a study by Washington-based researcher Worldwatch Institute that disputes a 2006 United Nations report.

Cattle, pigs and other domesticated animals discharge gases that are the equivalent of at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or 51 percent of world emissions, wroteRobert Goodland, former lead environmental adviser at the World Bank, and Jeff Anhang, a World Bank researcher. That is more than double the amount estimated by the UN.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2006 report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” attributed 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock. The FAO study excluded respiration by livestock, saying it is not a net source of CO2, a claim dismissed by Goodland and Anhang.

“A molecule of CO2 exhaled by livestock is no more natural than one from an auto tailpipe,” the researchers said. “Today, tens of billions more livestock are exhaling CO2 than in pre- industrial days.”

Breathing by livestock adds 8.77 million tons of carbon- dioxide equivalents to the atmosphere annually, the authors calculated. Carbon dioxide is the main heat-trapping gas blamed by scientists for climate change.

While the farm animal population has increased, the earth’s capacity to keep carbon from the atmosphere by absorbing it in plant mass has declined because forest has been cleared, the researchers said.

Overlooked, Undercounted

Goodland and Anhang also said the FAO report overlooked land use and undercounted the number of livestock, as well as excluding factors such as higher cooking temperatures typically required to prepare meat.

“The lifecycle and supply chain of domesticated animals raised for food have been vastly underestimated as a source of greenhouse gases,” the researcher wrote. “It implies that replacing livestock products with better alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change.”

Replacing meat and dairy with soybean-based alternatives would mitigate climate change, Goodland and Anhang said. U.S. sales of “soy analogs” amounted to $1.9 billion in 2007, compared with meat-product sales of more than $100 billion, according to the report.

“This 1.9 to 100 ratio suggests much room for growth in sales of meat and dairy analogs,” the researcher said. “Worldwide, the market for meat and dairy analogs is potentially almost as big as the market for livestock products.”

Goodland and Anhang also said artificial meat cultivated in laboratories from livestock cells may be an alternative to livestock production, though production and commercialization are still “several years off” and it is unclear whether “in vitro meat” will be able to compete in terms of cost and taste.

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