The upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai is set to witness the United Nations issuing a roadmap that urges Western nations, including the United States, to significantly reduce meat consumption as a crucial step in averting a climate catastrophe, according to Bloomberg.
The UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) will release a global food systems roadmap emphasizing the need to curb the consumption of meat, categorizing it as a vital element in the broader initiative to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
However, skeptics are challenging these warnings, highlighting that the U.S. agricultural sector contributes merely 1.4 percent of global emissions and has implemented solutions that position it as the nation’s lowest-emitting economic sector. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, emphasized the climate-friendly efforts of American farmers and ranchers.
“America’s farmers and ranchers are climate heroes, reducing emissions while providing abundant and affordable food, fiber, and fuel,” Thompson stated. “Regulating producers out of business in the U.S. will not effectively address global climate change but export production to foreign countries with hostile regimes and worse emissions profiles while harming food security and affordability. Simply put, the world needs American farmers and ranchers more than the UN.”
Jeremy Coller, chair and founder of the FAIRR Initiative, an investor network promoting climate-friendly agriculture, stressed the urgency of focusing on the food and agriculture sector in climate policy. Coller emphasized the failure of leading meat and dairy companies to reduce emissions, calling for increased policy attention to address food system emissions, which account for an estimated third of greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of methane.
U.S. climate czar John Kerry weighed in on the discussion, emphasizing the significant contribution of agriculture to global emissions. He highlighted the need for agriculture to be a central part of the solution for achieving net-zero emissions.
The left has previously suggested alternative protein sources, such as insect consumption and lab-grown meat, as replacements for traditional meat in diets. However, a study from the University of California, Davis, published in May, found that producing lab-grown meat can be up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef.
In contrast, an FAO report from the same month, analyzing 500 studies, concluded that animal food sources are healthier than plant-based alternatives, providing crucial nutrients such as protein, fat, carbs, iron, calcium, and zinc.
Furthermore, a study published last week in the journal Nature revealed that a molecule in beef and dairy, known as Trans-vaccenic acid (TVA), aids cancer patients in responding better to treatment.
Article generated from corporate media reports.
I’m not a super-educated expert scientist, and am many years removed from my school days, but it seems to me that all plants and animals are what they would call “carbon neutral” or “net zero”, from dust to dust, beginning of life through total decay, only ever emitting as much carbon as is consumed. Which would mean the more plant and animal life there is on the planet at a given time, the less carbon there is in the air, therefore making the objective to have more life rather than less. If they’re looking for a way to capture and store it, seems to me livestock is as good a place as any.
I hope everyone reading this column realizes this has nothing to do with the climate or how much co2 is in the atmosphere. This all about reducing the standard of living in 1st world countries, that is why they are the only countries [and a few 2nd world countries that rely on the first world ones so they won’t slip back to 3rd world] doing these ridiculous things. Remember the Lefts complaint “The USA is 5% of the world population and uses 25% of the worlds resources”. Just like the Left looks at the wealthy and thinks because those people are wealthy is the reason why poor people are poor. They don’t know how money or resources work.
Someone tell them that ending red meat also means ending Jello. That will get their attention.
Or at least get Biden’s attention!
So the USA gives the UN ~$12 billion a year so they can tell Americans what to eat?