Experts Slam FAO for ‘Dismissing’ Meat Reduction Plan and Alt-Protein From Climate Roadmap 

The first instalment of the FAO food systems roadmap, a plan to reach zero hunger without breaching the 1.5C global warming goal, was criticised for failing to consider key strategies such as meat consumption reduction.

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A group of experts has criticised the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) climate roadmap for neglecting key interventions to cut emissions across the food system. 

In a commentary published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature Food, a group of experts from academic institutions in the US, the Netherlands, and Brazil said the UN agency had “missed opportunities for greenhouse gas emissions reduction.”

Published during the UN climate summit COP28 in December last year, the first of three instalments of the FAO roadmap outlines several interrelated food security and climate objectives, introduces milestones for ten pivotal domains, and puts forward a total of 120 recommended actions.

Among the domains addressed in the roadmap is animal agriculture, which accounts for 12-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is by far the largest contributor to emissions from the food system, responsible for nearly 60% of them. In this regard, the UN agency introduced two milestones: a 25% cut in methane emissions from livestock by 2030 compared to 2020 and a 1.7% annual growth in total factor productivity for livestock by mid-century. 

Agriculture is the biggest source of anthropogenic methane – a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that has a global warming potential 25 times more than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) – with about 32% of total emissions originating from enteric fermentation and manure management. Global methane emissions have been on the rise, with an annual increase of 14 parts per billion in atmospheric methane in 2022, the fourth-largest annual increase recorded since measurements began in 1983. Atmospheric methane levels are also shown to be 162% higher than pre-industrial levels, alarming the scientific community. 

Despite introducing a “range of quantified goals and milestones,” the experts argued that it remained unclear “how the roadmap’s 120 proposed interventions were chosen – and how they will put the world on a path to limiting warming to 1.5°C.” According to the group, the omission of a meat production and consumption reduction strategy from the roadmap was “particularly concerning,” considering their potential to “yield meaningful emission reductions.” Indeed, while recognising that recent technological advancements to farmed animal management hold promise for the future, the group argued that they would only work when coupled with strategies aimed at reducing the consumption of animal foods.

The roadmap also addresses the need to change dietary habits to protect and improve the health of humans and the planet, setting a milestone for all the countries to “update their food-based dietary guidelines to provide context appropriate quantitative recommendations on dietary patterns” by 2030. In Wednesday’s commentary, however, the group said that FAO had failed to include recommendations to cut meat and dairy consumptions in the milestone, thereby missing “an opportunity to explore more diverse and balanced approaches to dietary change with the potential for public health and sustainability co-benefits,” the commentary read.

Concerns have been raised about the influence of the meat industry, whose lobbying reportedly includes efforts to create “positive livestock content” at COP28. An October 2023 Guardian investigation exposed how pressure from the meat industry led to the FAO diluting reports and suppressing evidence of livestock’s impact on the climate emergency. Notably, the UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action – the world’s first agreement on curbing emissions from food production signed by more than 130 countries at last year’s COP28 – does not explicitly mention meat or livestock, raising questions about the industry’s role in shaping climate related policies. 

More on the topic: Sustainable Diets: Will the First Global Declaration on Food-Related Emissions Work?