Carbon tunnel vision and sustainable meat production in the West: A disproportionate focus on dietary greenhouse gas emissions?

Livestock systems represent a considerable environmental challenge. In response, various scientists, non-governmental organisations, and policy makers claim that Western populations in particular need to sharply reduce meat consumption. Given people’s attachment to meat, many of these actors favour hard policy interventions based on a range of systemic financial and legal reforms that would go beyond mere nudging and the formulation of recommendations, including the top-down imposition of meat taxes and bans, as well as herd size reductions, which would lead to sharply higher prices. However, arguments in support of such policies tend to oversimplify the issue, ignoring regional variations, mitigation potential, and broader ecological and nutritional contexts. The focus of this article is on dietary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a main target for environmental policymaking, with all livestock production in the West contributing 2.6% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions globally. From a consumption perspective, reductions in meat eating represent a saving of 1–6% on the total individual carbon (C) footprint of an average Westerner, depending on dietary restrictiveness. However, such estimates need to account for differences in nutritional value when comparing animal and plant-based foods, as well as to factor in co-product benefits, C sequestration in grazing systems, natural baselines in rewilding scenarios, constraints on afforestation, the potential risk of “carbon leakage”, and distinct evaluation metrics for biogenic (enteric) methane versus fossil-fuel derived carbon dioxide. Carbon tunnel vision, hyperbolic narratives, and misguided policies risk compromising pathways to reasonable reform of existing meat industries, which are desirable and urgent.