Sustainable meat consumption what needs to be done

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Sustainable meat consumption what needs to be
done?

• John Powles
• Institute of Public Health
• Cambridge UK

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Context 1
2007

• To avoid dangerous climate change, GHG
  emissions will need to be reduced by
• Half per global citizen
• by 2050
• Three quarters per unit income

(To achieve stabilisation at 550 ppm CO2e)Stern,
p 205
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Context 2

• Proportionately greater reductions will be
  needed in high income countries to allow room
  for the effects of increased incomes in low and
  middle income countries
• eg 80 targets for total emissions from EU

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Context 3

• Livestock production is a leading source of
  GHG emissions (more than transport)
• And, on business as usual assumptions, is
• on a steep upward trajectory
• expected to at least double by 2050
• Because, until now
• (eg elasticity of demand for beef in China is
  1.5 (Kaaresvirta et al, 2008))

affluence ability to eat more meat
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Context 4

• However, 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 pay attention to health gains
• among the co-benefits of measures to avert
  climate change (ch 12)
• apart from reduced air pollution

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Suppose

• The link between affluence and high levels of
  meat consumption
• Is allowed to be mutable
• In an evolving world where the meaning of
  affluence must in any case - change radically
  towards affluence that can be sustained
• (who defends affluence that cannot be sustained
  ?)

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Question

• What changes in consumption might be needed
  just to achieve the conservative objective of
  averting an increase in GHG from global livestock
  by 2050?

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Global greenhouse gas emissions (2000)
Livestock production (including feed production)
accounts for half of all non-energy emissions
From Stern (2006)
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Sources of greenhouse gas emissions from
livestock production
Methane from cattle, sheep and goats front and
back ends
includes feed production and associated land
use changes
Based on FAO 2006
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90 gms meat per da
Per-person income (US PPP)
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Levels of meat consumption by region

• Region Meat consumption
  (g/person/day)
• Africa 31
• East and South Asia 112
• West Asia (incl. Middle East) 54
• Latin America 147
• Developing countries, total 47
• Developed countries, total 224
• World average 101 g/d
• Note
• Actually amount available for consumption.
  Quantities actually ingested will be lower,
  especially in high income countries, where
  wastage is higher.
• 80-100 gms of meat beef pattie in regular
  hamburger. An American quarter pounder 115
  gms of meat.

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Recent and Projected (to 2050) Consumption of
Livestock Products
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
• Overall
• 1 1.4

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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 ?

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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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90 gms meat per da
Per-person income (US PPP)
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90 gms meat per da
Per-person income (US PPP)
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90 gms meat per da
Convergence
Per-person income (US PPP)
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Potential co-benefits to health of a global
convergence (over 40 years) to a mean daily meat
consumption of 90 g
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Caveat

• 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
• Ie Less meat implies more space for protective
  components of diet
• gt Probable source of main health benefits

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• Have any previous generations had to embrace
  radical institutional and behavioural change
• ... In order to make progress sustainable?

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Overcoming the urban penalty, 1-4 year olds,
Sweden, 1860s 1920s
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• It took 60 years to make city life safe for
  Swedish children
• Culminating in programmes that changed the
  (private) behaviours of parents in caring for
  their children

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• Is our right to eat lots of meat more
  inviolable than our right to be indifferent about
  personal and family cleanliness?
• Or are both rightly seen as obstacles to
  sustainability?

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Summary

• Livestock should not be ignored in strategies to
  avert global warming
• Limited prospects for mitigation (reducing GHG
  emissions per unit product) mean emphasis must
  shift to restraining global consumption
• 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

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