Sustainable meat consumption a global perspective

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Sustainable meat consumption a global
perspective
John Powles
Department of Public Health and Primary Care
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Global greenhouse gas emissions, by source, 2000.
From Stern (2006)
Livestock production (including feed production)
accounts for half of all non-energy emissions
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Context

• Livestock production is a leading source of GHG
  emissions
• And, on business as usual assumptions, will rise
  on a steep upward trajectory, doubling by 2050
• Because, until now

affluence ability to eat more meat
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Context 2

• Nicholas Stern, when considering the role of
  demand reduction limited his suggestions to
• over-heating buildings ... Energy-hungry
  appliances ... Environmentally unfriendly forms
  of transport etc (p 219)
• And did not count health gains
• among the co-benefits of measures to avert
  climate change (ch 12)
• apart
  from those from reduced air pollution

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Suppose we allow

• The link between affluence and high levels of
  meat consumption
• to be mutable (over 40 years)
• In an evolving world where the meaning of
  affluence must in any case - change radically
  (towards sustainable affluence)

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We could then ask

• 1. What changes in consumption might be needed
  to achieve the conservative objective of
  averting an increase in GHG from global
  livestock by 2050?
• 2. ... And what might be the co-benefits to
  health?

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330
275
220
165
110
55
90 gms meat per da
Per-person income (US PPP)
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Business as usual projections of animal product
consumption
Projections
Industrialised
Ex-Soviet bloc countries -in-transition
East Asia
Latin America, Caribbean
Near East, N Africa
South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
Year
Source Livestocks Long Shadow. FAO, 2006
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Preventing an increase in GHG emissions from
livestock to 2050 illustrative multipliers

• Max
• acceptable Popn mitigation av.
  consumption
• in 2050
• 1 1.4 0.8 ?

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Preventing an increase in GHG emissions from
livestock to 2050 illustrative multipliers

• Max
• acceptable Popn mitigation av.
  consumption
• Overall
• 1 1.4 0.8 0.9
• Current av. consumption 0.9 90 g/d

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Meat grams per day, 2000
consumption, not ingestion
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Meat grams per day, 2000 and 2050
90 g/d in 2050
consumption, not ingestion
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90 gms meat per da
Per-person income (US PPP)
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What are the potential co-benefits to health of
a global convergence (over 40 years) to 90 g
meat /d?
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Potential co-benefits to health sources of
uncertainty

• Benefits cannot be simply inferred from health
  advantages of vegetarians(because vegetarians
  have other health-favouring characteristics)
• Benefits will come, in large part, from making
  room for more beneficial components of diet
  (which may or may not - be realised)

• In most diets, inadequate consumption of
  beneficial dietary components appears to be
  more detrimental than is an excessive intake of
  harmful foods
• Walter Willett, Harvard School of Public Health

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Potential co-benefits to health of global
convergence to 90 g meat/d
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Precedent

• Radical institutional and behavioural changes
  have been needed in the past in order to contain
  adverse health effects of material progress
  and thereby make it sustainable .

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It took more than half a century to overcome the
lethality of cities for infants and children

• Massive investmentBy the 1890s (in the UK)
  local government tax revenues exceeded those of
  central government
• Behaviour changeIn the early C20 there were
  sustained programmes to change personal
  behaviours (cleanliness, child care)

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Potential policy instruments for reducing
effective demand for animal products

• Refashion government website to support
  multigas strategies (ie incl CH4 and NO2)
• as advocated by Stern(rather than exclusive CO2
  emphasis of current site)
• Remove production subsidies
• Product labelling (CO2 equivalent)
• Procurement guidelines for public sector
• Eg Catering in the NHS (as now proposed)
• Differential consumption taxes (Sweden)

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... A personal note
This is our formerirrigated dairy farmin S-W
NSW ... In full production over 100 cows were
milked.
1994
2009
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... A personal note
This is our formerirrigated dairy farmin S-W
NSW ... In full production over 100 cows were
milked. Now it appears dead and abandoned. After
3 years with no available irrigation water(flow
in the Murray River has halved in the last 10
years).
1994
2009
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Summary

• Livestock can not be ignored in strategies to
  avert global warming
• Limited prospects for mitigation (reducing GHG
  emissions per unit product) mean consumption must
  be restrained
• A global convergence to around 90 g meat /d seems
  to be needed to avoid GHG increases from this
  sector by 2050
• Such a convergence should also bring health
  co-benefits to both current high and low
  consumers