Posted by Mark on 12 Apr, 2017
A while ago, a friend posted a video from Spiegel Online, in which the author claims that 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions were due to meat production, which would be more than the amount produced by transportation. He literally claims that "someone who eats less meat helps the planet more than someone who leaves out the next plane trip".
My friend also posted a graphic (Cowspiracy) that claims that "a plant-based diet cuts your carbon footprint by 50%" and that 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions are "due to livestock and their byproducts".
Since I'm concerned with a sustainable lifestyle, but also love to eat meat and drink milk, I asked myself, if these numbers could be right and if I could and should change my eating habits. Based on a great TED talk that introduced the idea of the "weekday vegetarian", I have reduced my meat consumption years ago. A rough estimation lets me assume that I consume about 500 to 800 grams of meat (including fish) per week, so I start from a medium level already.
The first source of information that I checked was the carbon footprint calculator of the German federal office for ecology (Umwelt-Bundesamt). It walks you through several aspects of your life that result in carbon emissions. Based on their data, the average German produces about 11 tons of carbon dioxide per year - and my personal footprint is about 7 tons. Food actually accounts for 1.75 tons for an average person and 1.05 tons for a vegan. So 0.7 tons per capita can be accounted to meat production, which is less then 10%. So, at least for Germany, meat production accounts for a lot less than 18% of our greenhouse emissions, as far as the Umwelt-Bundesamt goes.
Compared with 1 hour of domestic flight (0.17 tons CO2) or 1 hour of intercontinental flight (0.24 tons), leaving out the next flight will definitely have a higher impact than eating less meat. Coincidentally, my friend who posted this video on Facebook is currently travelling Asia. According to the Umwelt-Bundesamt, a oneway flight from Cologne to Bangkok produces 2.78 tons of CO2 per person, equivalent to four average Germans that would go totally vegan.
Now, it usually makes sense to double-check data with different sources. So, I first checked the general data on greenhouse gas emissions from the Umwelt-Bundesamt. There, I find data that accounts 7% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Germany to agriculture, which is even less than my calculation above.
The problem here is how to count greenhouse gas emissions. Typically, laughing gas (N2O) and methane (CH4) are expressed in CO2 equivalents and summed up and both gases have a much higher impact per molecule than CO2, so slight differences in the N2O or CH4 calculations can have a high impact and these are specifically found in agriculture, adding up to about 60% of the carbon equivalent greenhouse emissions of agriculture according to the Bavarian ministry for agriculture (LWL). A paper found on their website assumes that 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Germany are produced by agriculture. This is twice as much as the data from Umwelt-Bundesamt, but still much less than the numbers claimed by the Spiegel Online or the Cowspiracy poster. Furthermore, the paper states that, including animal feed, livestock accounts for two thirds of the carbon equivalent produced by agriculture. This is again a deviation from the Umwelt-Bundesamt data where meat consumption makes up less than 50% of a personal carbon footprint, but still in the same order.
Since one could argue that German public institutions might be politically influenced, I also consulted the data provided by the World Wildlife Foundation that runs a campaign for eating less meat. Their website actually carries a lot of information and very detailed and well researched papers with lots of literature references and meta-studies. So, if you are interested in details and in a neutral source, visit their website on meat consumption. The data found in the relevant PDF is more or less the data used by the German ministries. Instead of "two thirds", the WWF writes that meat accounts for "nearly 70%" of the greenhouse emissions of agriculture, though, which sounds like more :-)
The big question is now: what should I do to improve my carbon footprint? The calculator from the Umwelt-Bundesamt was very enlightening here. It splits the your carbon emissions up into these categories (numbers in parentheses are German averages):
Instead of concentrating on things like a new fridge or vegetarianism as most important, it is clearly the "other consumption" category that is easiest to influence. As I really do not spend much on consumption (my bike is 20 years old, I don't have a car, my furniture is old, I just repaired some pairs of jeans ;-)), my personal footprint is already much lower than average. Also, I live in a very modern house, reducing my expenditure on heating a lot and I don't have a car, so my numbers for mobility are also lower than average. This year, though, I just travelled to Cyprus, which makes a huge difference to the last years where we mainly travelled by train and bike through Germany.
So, what I'll keep in mind is to not travel too much / too far and to keep consuming less. I'm happy with my rate of meat consumption, though ;-)
