This week, the UK government’s official advisory panel on fighting climate change has again called for a reduction in meat and dairy consumption. Will it happen?
Last year’s COP29 global climate change meeting was widely seen as a failure, and this year has seen President Trump’s announcement that the US will withdraw from the Paris Agreement on limiting emissions. Sadly, global action on climate change is faltering. All this makes our own individual choices yet more critical – and all the more important that governments take action to support positive choices such as veganism and eating more plant-based food.
Farmed animals and climate change
Food production accounts for around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2017, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that the farmed animal sector was responsible for about 15% of all emissions – other estimates putting the proportion higher. With the world way off track to keep temperature rises below 1.5°C, we must use every mechanism at our disposal to reduce emissions. That’s why there is a very wide expert consensus that reducing meat and dairy consumption needs to be part of our efforts to tackle climate change.
Farming animals contributes to climate change in three ways. First, certain animals – cows and sheep - produce methane as part of their digestion, which is almost 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere. The good news is that methane also stays in the atmosphere for far less time, meaning that reductions in the amount of methane help to reduce temperatures more quickly than reductions in carbon dioxide. Second, manure from animals causes emissions of nitrous oxide, another powerful greenhouse gas. Last, as we all know, animal agriculture is an incredibly inefficient way of producing food. 85% of the land used to feed the UK population is devoted to animal agriculture, even though it produces just a third of our calories. If it were not being used to graze or grow feed for animals, that excess land could be used for reforestation (or other forms of rewilding), helping to reduce emissions. In fact, this is the biggest climate benefit of transitioning away from animal agriculture.
That is why, proteins from plant sources almost always have a significantly lower climate impact than proteins from animal sources, as this graph from the Climate Change Committee's last budget shows.
Image credit: Climate Change Committee, Sixth Carbon Budget, 2020.
Calls for action
All this is why the UK’s official advisory body on climate change, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has long advised that as a nation, the UK should cut meat and dairy consumption, to reduce the number of farmed animals. It has reaffirmed that policy today in its Seventh Carbon Budget, its latest set of recommendations to government about the changes needed to achieve Net Zero by 2050. This budget covers what will need to occur in the period up until 2043 and recommends that average meat consumption in the UK is cut by 25% by 2040 (compared to 2019 levels) and 35% by 2050, with steeper cuts in red meat consumption – 40% by 2050. It recommends dairy consumption should be cut by 20% by 2035. The goal is that through dietary change, numbers of cattle and sheep in the UK will reduce by around 40% by 2050.
The committee also rejects the argument made by some farmers and farming organisations that changes in the way animals are farmed – such as feed additives which reduce methane emissions from cows – will mean there is no need to change dietary habits. It is absolutely clear that reducing the number of farmed animals is essential to meeting climate targets.
Failure to take action
Unfortunately, the previous government studiously ignored the Climate Change Committee’s advice on increasing consumption of plant-based foods, as well as that of multiple other experts. That included the recommendations of the 2021 Food Strategy that the government itself commissioned, which said, “we simply cannot reduce methane emissions to a safe level, nor free up the land we need for sequestering carbon, without reducing the amount of meat we eat.”
In its 2023 and 2024 annual reports, the CCC unsurprisingly bemoaned the Conservative government’s lack of any meaningful plans for agriculture and land use, stating in 2024 that “reducing emissions in the agriculture, land use and waste sectors requires substantial acceleration over the coming seven years.” It also noted that the meat marketing campaign by the government-sponsored Agriculture and Horticulture Advisory Board was inconsistent with the aim of reducing meat consumption. The Vegan Society has been closely involved in recent challenges to that campaign.
So, what are the signs from the Labour government elected last July? So far, they have largely avoided the issue. Although quick to take action in many areas of climate change policy, those actions so far have focused almost entirely on energy. In its response to the CCC’s 2024 report in December, the government ignored the committee’s reference to dietary change, saying only that it had “made a commitment to tread lightly on people’s lives”. (The Scottish Government, however, said it “accepts the recommendation to continue a national dialogue on all aspects of lifestyles and household choices which contribute to domestic emissions and global carbon footprint.”)
Invited to comment on dietary change at COP29 last year, the Prime Minister said “it’s not about telling people how to live their lives”. That comment missed the point, however, that the government can take sensible measures to promote dietary change by increasing choice and removing barriers, such as the cost of healthy, fresh, plant-based food, without telling anyone what to do. (Doing so would also help to improve the nation’s health and save the NHS money.) The Vegan Society’s policy manifesto, launched before the election spells out the kind of positive steps needed. As the Climate Change Committee acknowledges, the importance of individuals changing their behaviour should not mean that the responsibility is entirely on them – government should support and enable the changes which will be positive for us all.
There are some grounds for optimism, however. In a recent letter to an MP, the ministry responsible for food and agriculture, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), acknowledged that “generally plant-based products are less carbon-intensive to produce than livestock products”. In a widely welcomed move last December, Defra announced it would be developing a food strategy this year, and many influential health and environmental organisations are already calling on the government to promote plant-based foods to meet its health and sustainability goals. Further details of the process for developing the strategy have yet to be announced, but The Vegan Society is already preparing for its engagement.
Take action
It is essential that that the government puts its weight behind the transition towards more plant-based diets. Please contact your MP and ask them to urge the government to take action to promote plant-based foods in its forthcoming food strategy. Provide a link to our policy manifesto which spells out the measures the government can take. Contact your MP and learn more about the manifesto.
Written by Alistair Currie, Public Affairs and Policy Manager at The Vegan Society.
The views expressed by our bloggers are not necessarily the views of The Vegan Society.
