Like prior administrations, the Biden administration has treated animal agriculture differently than other heavy-emitting industries. For example, even though (as discussed below) animal agriculture is the country’s largest source of methane, the Inflation Reduction Act does not apply to animal agriculture the methane emissions charge that it places on oil and gas. Similarly, the administration’s methane action plan takes an entirely voluntary and incentive-based approach to the sector. This is consistent with the 2021 “Global Methane Pledge,” by which more than a hundred countries have committed to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. While the Pledge calls for “all feasible reductions in the energy and waste sectors,” it aims lower for agriculture, seeking only “abatement of agricultural emissions through technology innovation as well as incentives and partnerships with farmers.” Global Methane Pledge at 2.
Animal Agriculture’s Climate Problem
Animal agriculture’s climate impacts receive this friendly regulatory treatment despite the fact that the industry accounts for somewhere between 12% and 19% of all global GHG emissions. Dan Blaustein-Rejto & Chris Gambino, Livestock Don’t Contribute 14.5% of Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Breakthrough Inst. (Mar. 20, 2023). As to the climate super-pollutants methane and nitrous oxide, animal agriculture’s contributions are even more significant.
Nitrous oxide is one of the most powerful GHGs, around 280 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Piers Forster et al., The Earth’s Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks and Climate Sensitivity, in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis 923, 1017 (Valérie Masson-Delmotte et al. eds., 2021). According to a U.N. estimate, animal agriculture is responsible for more than half of all global nitrous oxide emissions.
Animal agriculture is also the leading sectoral emitter of methane, responsible for 37% of all anthropogenic methane emissions in the United States according to the EPA, and nearly a third globally. Methane is referred to as a short-lived climate super pollutant because, while it is about 80 times more powerful as a warming agent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, the average methane molecule breaks down in a decade. Methane Emissions Are Driving Climate Change: Here’s How to Reduce Them, U.N. Env’t Prog. (Aug. 20, 2021). Thus, as observed by one of the lead reviewers of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report: “Cutting methane is the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040.” Fiona Harvey, Reduce Methane or Face Climate Catastrophe, Scientists Warn, Guardian (Aug. 6, 2021). Moreover, because of the cooling effects of light-reflecting aerosols that are co-emitted with carbon dioxide, decarbonization alone—without also reducing short-lived climate pollutants like methane—will not achieve necessary reductions of global warming. Gabrielle B. Dreyfus et al., Mitigating Climate Disruption in Time: A Self-Consistent Approach for Avoiding Both Near-Term and Long-Term Global Warming, 119 Proc. Nat’l Acad. Scis. 1, 5 (2022).
Research has repeatedly shown that reducing emissions from animal agriculture is a critical part of achieving Paris Agreement climate targets. For example, a 2020 study found that “[m]eeting the 1.5°C target requires rapid and ambitious changes to food systems. . . .” Michael A. Clark et al., Global Food System Emissions Could Preclude Achieving the 1.5° and 2°C Climate Change Targets, 370 Science 705, 705 (2020). According to a U.N. Environment Programme report, animal agriculture is the most significant part of the sector, responsible for about 60% of food system emissions. U.S. experts estimate that nearly 80% of U.S. agriculture emissions are from the production of animals for food and their feed. Peter H. Lehner & Nathan A. Rosenberg, Farming for Our Future: The Science, Law, and Policy of Climate-Neutral Agriculture 43 (2021). Another prominent study found that “increased adoption of plant-based diets has high mitigation potential, which is probably needed to limit global warming to less than 2°C increase.” Walter Willett et al., Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems, 393 Lancet 447, 472 (2019).
Industrial Animal Agriculture’s Vulnerability to Climate Risks
While the industry has so far been largely beyond the reach of U.S. climate regulators, it is profoundly vulnerable to the effects of climate change—making animal agriculture’s climate-warming emissions a direct threat to its own business model. The industry relies heavily on concentrated facilities, where extreme weather can cause large-scale destruction of infrastructure and loss of animal lives. Animals are themselves directly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including negative health effects and decreased productivity, and are highly reliant on feed crops that will be impacted by changing weather patterns. These risks are not predictions: They have already arrived. During the record-breakingly hot summer of 2023, the Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency observed that “heat domes plaguing many parts of the country” had proven “unsurvivable for some animals,” calling this “one of the latest, many examples of how a changing climate is creating immediate challenges for farmers and ranchers.” Press Release, U.S. Dep’t Agric., Agric. Farm Serv. Agency, USDA Updates Livestock Disaster Program Payment Rate to Assist Producers Hard-Hit by Heat and Humidity (Aug. 25, 2023).
Animal agriculture is also vulnerable to the climate risks that come with being a major climate polluter. The hazards currently faced by the fossil fuel industry exemplify this second set of risks, with which animal agriculture will eventually and necessarily have to contend: litigation, regulation, and reputational harm. As to litigation, early cases are already demonstrating that animal agriculture can be the target of the same kinds of climate-focused lawsuits that are being leveraged against the fossil fuel industry. See generally Daina Bray & Thomas Poston, The Methane Majors: Climate Change & Animal Agriculture in U.S. Courts, 49 Colum. J. Env’t L. 145 (2024). As to regulation, while the United States is currently lagging behind some other countries and international bodies in this regard (as discussed below), regulatory tightening can be expected as the effects of climate change worsen. Lastly, surveys show that many Americans currently underappreciate the role of meat and dairy production in warming the planet. For example, a recent poll found that two-thirds of U.S. voter respondents either did not believe that eating less meat would lower GHG emissions or weren’t sure. Jess Thomson, Americans Refuse to Quit Eating Meat, Newsweek (May 23, 2023). Given that advocates and civil society groups are increasingly focused on educating the public about the climate impacts of meat and dairy, awareness may grow—but only if such efforts can overcome the powerful countermessaging being employed by the industry. See, e.g., Joe Fassler, Inside Big Beef’s Climate Messaging Machine: Confuse, Defend and Downplay, Guardian (May 3, 2023).
All of this adds up to significant economic risk for animal agribusiness. FAIRR, an ESG investor network focused on the animal agriculture sector, has found that the largest meat and dairy companies stand to lose significant value due to climate-induced changes, particularly increased animal feed costs. For these reasons, any tendency by politicians to soft-pedal climate regulation of meat and dairy production to promote food security is short-sighted and counterproductive, as these industries both worsen the problem and are themselves highly vulnerable to its effects.
An Obvious Policy Solution
As exemplified by the publication of Diet for a Small Planet more than 50 years ago, activists have long worked to draw attention to the increased environmental impact of eating animals rather than eating plants. Frances Moore Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet (1971). This amplified impact is patently clear in relation to climate, with many experts advising that reducing meat and dairy consumption is one of the most significant things that an individual can do to reduce their climate footprint.
But it is difficult for individuals to transform food systems without government support: Alternative products must be readily available, affordable, and appealing. The scale of necessary change will require government investment and encouragement through policy. Unfortunately, current subsidies bolster the animal agriculture industry. Jared Hayes, USDA Livestock Subsidies Near $50 Billion, EWG Analysis Finds, Env’t Working Grp. (Feb. 28, 2022). According to a U.N. report, emissions-intensive commodities, including beef and milk, “receive the most support worldwide, despite the potentially negative impacts on health as well as on climate change adaptation and mitigation, and the (relative) disincentives this support creates towards producing healthier and more nutritious foods, such as fruits and vegetables.” U.N. Food & Agric. Org., U.N. Env’t Prog. & U.N. Dev’t Prog., A Multi-Billion-Dollar Opportunity: Repurposing Agricultural Support to Transform Food Systems xvii (2021).
Multiple international bodies are calling with increasing clarity for policy support for reductions in meat and dairy consumption as a necessary part of the response to the climate crisis. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the U.N. body responsible for assessing climate science—recognized the importance of decreasing consumption of animal products in a 2018 report, and the U.N. Environment Programme did so in 2021. U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways (Valérie Masson-Delmotte et al. eds., 2018); Global Methane Assessment: Summary for Decisionmakers, U.N. Env’t Prog. 10 (2021). Most recently, in mid-2024, a World Bank report suggested “shift[ing] subsidies for red meat and dairy toward lower-emission foods,” including fruits and vegetables. William R. Sutton et al., Recipe for a Liveable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System, at xxiii (World Bank Grp. 2024).
Moreover, a number of countries—most notably Denmark through its ground-breaking Plant-Based Action Plan and proposed GHG emissions tax on cows, sheep, and pigs—are experimenting with policies that would help replace meat and dairy with healthier and more sustainable plant-based alternatives. In a noteworthy development in the United States, in late 2023 the Fifth National Climate Assessment recognized that shifts to plant-based and cultivated (i.e., lab-grown) meat alternatives “offer the potential to reduce GHG emissions.” Carl H. Bolster et al., Chapter 11: Agriculture, Food Systems, and Rural Communities, in Fifth National Climate Assessment 11–12 (Allison Crimmins et al. eds., 2023).
Reactionary U.S. Politics
Nonetheless, there has been no significant federal-level climate policy in the United States to support reduced consumption of meat and dairy in favor of alternatives. In contrast, there have been significant actions at the local level. For example, New York City is now serving plant-based meals as the default choice in public schools and twice a week in hospitals. Press Release, City of New York, Mayor Adams Announces Cross-Sector Partnership to Reduce Food-Related Carbon Emissions Across NYC (Apr. 18, 2024). Earlier this year, Los Angeles committed to decreasing meat and dairy and increasing alternatives at county facilities. City News Serv., LA Supervisors Endorse Move to More Plant-Based Food at County Facilities, L.A. Daily News (Feb. 28, 2024).
Reactionary responses by some federal-level U.S. politicians stand in contrast to these local efforts. In response to the unprecedented focus on food systems at the most recent Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai in 2023 (COP28), one U.S. senator said that farmers and the animal agriculture industry were being “targeted,” and a U.S. representative proposed in response that the House adopt a resolution to “oppose[] the use of any Federal resources to support attempts to reduce meat consumption.” Marc Heller, Iowa’s Senior Senator Said the COP28 Conference in the United Arab Emirates Aims to Hobble U.S. Livestock Producers, Politico Pro (Dec. 6, 2023); H.R. Res. 920, 118th Cong., §§ 3–4 (2023). At the state level, despite cultivated meat’s potential as a lower emissions and more sustainable alternative, the states of Alabama and Florida recently preemptively banned it.
Transitioning to an Equitable, Sustainable, and Humane Food System
Last year was the hottest year on record. This year has already seen devastating floods in Brazil and extreme heat in Asia. Even as we are already experiencing the effects of climate change, governments and companies are failing to make sufficient progress on reducing emissions. As observed by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres: “Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3°C temperature rise.” Gloria Dickie, Climate on Track to Warm by Nearly 3C Without Aggressive Actions, UN Report Finds, Reuters (Nov. 20, 2023).
Policymakers should not wait to transition toward lower emissions food systems:
If we fail to act now, runaway climate change will force us to adapt our eating habits because of collapsing food-production systems. If we act quickly, we can manage the transition to healthier and more nature-and-climate-friendly diets that are more just and equitable. This is where our choices and opportunities lie.
Blindspot: How Lack of Action on Livestock Methane Undermines Climate Targets, Changing Mkts. Found. 43 (2021). One of the most powerful policy tools is to encourage the transition to plant-forward diets, particularly in high-consuming countries like ours. Reduced consumption of animal products can create a “double climate dividend” by dramatically reducing emissions associated with food production and creating opportunities to revert lands currently used for animal feed production to natural climate solutions that sequester carbon. Zhongxiao Sun et al., Dietary Change in High-Income Nations Alone Can Lead to Substantial Double Climate Dividend, 3 Nature Food 29, 33–34 (Jan. 2022).
Dietary change and transformation of food systems are challenging and complex undertakings. Such shifts must ensure a just transition that is fair and inclusive and that creates opportunities for those whose livelihoods and communities are affected. They also must be mindful of international equity, ensuring that wealthier nations that bear a greater responsibility for historical emissions and have resources to access and develop alternatives lead the way and support other countries. In the United States—one of the largest producers and consumers of animal products—policymakers should not delay. U.S. climate policy must include accurate and comprehensive emissions reporting and regulation of animal agriculture; reductions in or the end of subsidies for high-emissions foods; and support for climate-friendly, nonanimal alternatives. The current hands-off approach to the climate emissions of animal agriculture is not tenable and will not serve us well in the long run.
