Articles

This report reveals the tactics of Big Meat and Dairy companies to delay, distract, and derail action on transforming the food system, mirroring strategies used by the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. Food systems are responsible for around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, with approximately 60% coming from animal agriculture, the largest source of man-made methane emissions.

The EU is on track to break a promise to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 made due to a “policy vacuum” on livestock emissions, a report has warned.Most of Europe’s methane emissions come from agriculture – particularly livestock – but the EU has avoided using policy levers such as its €387bn common agricultural policy to directly tackle the problem

Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.

Programme to tackle pollution crisis caused by an overload of manure faces fierce opposition from farmers

The case for cutting meat consumption is so compelling that you would think politicians would be less shy about making it. Yet while campaigners warn with increasing urgency that global livestock production is accelerating climate breakdown and causing devastating damage to nature and human health, governments remain reluctant to tackle meat-eating.

After the highest Dutch administrative court found in 2019 that the government was breaking EU law by not doing enough to reduce excess nitrogen in vulnerable natural areas, the country has been battling what it is calling a “nitrogen crisis”.Now civil servants have drawn up proposals which include slashing livestock numbers by 30%, one of the most radical plans of its kind in Europe.

Twenty livestock companies are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than either Germany, Britain or France – and are receiving billions of dollars in financial backing to do so, according to a new report by environmental campaigners. Raising livestock contributes significantly to carbon emissions, with animal agriculture accounting for 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.