Agriculture accounts for 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of which are attributable to livestock in the form of methane from burps and manure, and deforestation for grazing and feed crops.
“The scientific consensus at the moment is that dietary shifts are the biggest leverage we have to reduce emissions and other damage caused by our food system,” Behrens told the Guardian.
“But the FAO chose the roughest and most inappropriate approach to their estimates and framed it in a way that was very useful for interest groups seeking to show that plant-based diets have a small mitigation potential compared to alternatives.”
Of more than 200 climate scientists surveyed by Behrens and Hayek for a recent paper, 78% said it was important for livestock herd sizes to peak by 2025 if the world was to stand a chance of preventing dangerous global heating.
As well as using obsolete NRDs, the scientists say the FAO report “systematically underestimates” the emissions-cutting potential of dietary shifts through what the letter calls a “series of methodological errors”.
The FAO is the world’s primary source for agricultural data, and its reports are routinely used by authoritative bodies such as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The original article contains 801 words, the summary contains 203 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Agriculture accounts for 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of which are attributable to livestock in the form of methane from burps and manure, and deforestation for grazing and feed crops.
“The scientific consensus at the moment is that dietary shifts are the biggest leverage we have to reduce emissions and other damage caused by our food system,” Behrens told the Guardian.
“But the FAO chose the roughest and most inappropriate approach to their estimates and framed it in a way that was very useful for interest groups seeking to show that plant-based diets have a small mitigation potential compared to alternatives.”
Of more than 200 climate scientists surveyed by Behrens and Hayek for a recent paper, 78% said it was important for livestock herd sizes to peak by 2025 if the world was to stand a chance of preventing dangerous global heating.
As well as using obsolete NRDs, the scientists say the FAO report “systematically underestimates” the emissions-cutting potential of dietary shifts through what the letter calls a “series of methodological errors”.
The FAO is the world’s primary source for agricultural data, and its reports are routinely used by authoritative bodies such as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The original article contains 801 words, the summary contains 203 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!