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Our article is 'The Carbon Opportunity Cost of Animal Sourced Food Production on Land' was just published in Nature Sustainability! https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4
Animal feed croplands and pasture compete with native ecosystems & their potential to draw down CO2.
Animal feed croplands and pasture compete with native ecosystems & their potential to draw down CO2.
We found that not all animal agricultural production is created equal, and some areas like parts of Europe and S. American Atlantic forests, have huge potential to conserve carbon by scaling back production. Dark green areas = more CO2 drawdown by native forests.
The potential to drawdown CO2 with dietary shifts toward less meat (like eat lancet diets, middle bar) is larger than previously estimated. 100s of gigatons! Equal to the past 9 years of fossil fuel emission. At the far end, eliminating meat & dairy would offset 16 years.
Reducing meat consumption could get us a *long* way toward limit global warming to 1.5 deg C, if we get serious & phase out fossil fuels too. Most of the potential for reforestation, hence CO2 removal, is in high + upper-middle income countries.
Our full article is now out in @naturesustainab, but if you don't have university access you can read it here for free: https://rdcu.be/b6SOS
