The dairy and cattle industry consistently gets a bad rap for producing climate-changing greenhouse gases. And climate activists love to shout statistics about the methane gas produced by ruminants and push a "meat-free" diet that is unsustainable in a world with a population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050.
Our global approach to climate change solutions can be significantly affected by failing to specify a geographic region while stating greenhouse gas emissions and production as they differ from country to country.
The Numbers in the US
Research from UC Davis in 2019 shows that dairy cows account for only 4% of all greenhouse gases produced in the United States, and beef cattle account for only 2% of emissions.
"Better breeding, genetics, and nutrition have increased the efficiency of livestock production in the U.S. In the 1970s, 140 million head of cattle were needed to meet demand. Now, just 90 million head are required. At the same time, those 90 million cattle are producing more meat" according to UC Davis Researchers.
“We’re now feeding more people with fewer cattle,” Frank Mitloehner said, a professor at UC Davis.
Dairy farmers and ranchers in the United States have done an incredible job at improving environmental efficiency, so using global statistics to generalize emissions is a disservice to those countries that efficiently raise livestock.
The Global Numbers
The total global emissions of human-induced greenhouse gasses are 49 gigatons CO2 -eq per year. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock produces 7.1 gigatons of CO2-equiv per year of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, which is 14.5 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. But as seen in the figure above, not every country produces an even split of that 14.5 percent.
The FAO says North America, which includes the United States, Canada, Greenland, and Bermuda, emits just over 0.6 gigatons of CO2-equiv per year, which is roughly 1.2 percent of all global emissions.
To put all of this into perspective, in Mexico, it takes up to five cows to produce the same amount of milk as one cow in the United States. In India, it takes up to 20 cows to match one milk cow's production in the US.
In Conclusion
Using global emission statistics is distracting people from climate change solutions regionally. There is no doubt that globally we need to reduce livestock emissions, but it is prudent to focus on regions where emissions are disproportionality higher.
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