World leaders, environmentalists and journalists everywhere have been celebrating extra hard in recent days. December 2015 saw two weeks of negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris. At the end of the event, the final agreement, a mix of mandatory and voluntary statements that apply to almost 200 countries, were agreed. These included:
- To peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century;
- To keep global temperature growth 'well below' 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C;
- To review progress every five years;
- To provide US$100bn/yr in climate finance to developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to further finance in the future.
At COP 21, the global cement industry reaffirmed its commitment to help tackle climate change by releasing a set of action plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 1000Mt by 2030, compared to business as usual. "Cement production accounts for approximately 5% of worldwide man-made CO2 emissions. This collective effort by the cement industry to mitigate its emissions is highly encouraging and showcases the importance of leadership and collaboration in making the transition to a low carbon economy," said Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
These are good intentions, of course, but just how bad is cement production when compared to other sectors? In 2010, global greenhouse gas emissions contributors were broken down into the following categories:1
- Electricity and heat production - 25%;
- Agriculture, forestry and other land use - 24%;
- Industry (including cement production) - 21%;
- Transportation - 14%;
- Other energy - 10%;
- Buildings - 6%.
Animal agriculture, which includes emissions from animal feed production, transportation of feed and livestock and direct emissions from livestock, has been identified as the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, producing 18% of global greenhouse gases, including 32,000Mt of CO2 emissions.2 It is also responsible for 65% of anthropogenic NOx emissions. Due to the growing global population and the increasing quantity of meat consumed by developing countries, emissions from animal agriculture are set to increase by 80% by 2050. Suddenly the cement industry isn't looking quite so bad...
Yet I did not see any mention of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from animal agriculture in reports from the COP 21. As highlighted by the US documentary 'Cowspiracy,' it's something that individuals and NGOs, including Greenpeace,2 are reluctant to talk about. It's a topic that seems to have been ignored again by world leaders in December 2015, which is a shame considering the massive difference it could make to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
There are many other valid arguments and lots of statistics that show that the world would be a better and healthier place without animal agriculture. For example, the world currently produces enough food to feed a population of 10 billion (the world's population in 2015 was estimated at 7.3 billion). And yet, every day we are bombarded with images of starving children, who we would have no trouble feeding if livestock was not
consuming 50% of the world's crops.
In terms of food production resources, annually, each omnivore requires three acres of land, each vegetarian needs 0.5 acres of land and every vegan needs 0.16 acres of land.2 Animal agriculture consumes 20 - 33% of global water supplies, occupies 33% of the world's ice-free land and is responsible for 91% of the Amazon rainforest destruction. There's some food for thought. There's also the World Health Organisation's (WHO) October 2015 statement, which outlined the links between eating meat and a wide range of cancers.3
Despite all the facts, meat consumption remains the norm and its devastating consequences to the environment and the health of the population in terms of cancers and starvation, are ignored. And the single most commonly-used argument against veganism or even a moderate reduction in meat consumption?
"Bacon, though..."
1. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/
2. http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34615621
