Meat & dairy giants’ methane emissions rival Big Oil’s: cuts can  dramatically slow down global heating this decade – Greenpeace

Amsterdam/Stockholm – Estimated methane emissions of 29 meat and dairy companies analysed by a new Greenpeace Nordic report[1] rival those of the world’s reported 100 biggest corporations in the fossil fuel sector. But systematic changes in production and consumption in high- and mid- income countries could provide a significant cooling effect by 2050, with some positive results already by 2030. In contrast, if left unregulated, the meat and dairy sector alone is projected to heat up the world by an additional 0.32°C by 2050.[2] These new projections are based on United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (UN FAO) scenario for a business-as-usual pathway for food and agriculture to 2050.[3]

The report “Turning down the heat: Pulling the Climate Emergency Brake on Big Meat and Dairy” shows that it is possible to meaningfully slow down climate heating within our lifetime with a just food system transition out of industrial meat and dairy production, increasing plant-based food, in line with the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health diet.[4] 

The Greenpeace Nordic report projects a cooling effect of 0.12°C by 2050 with a shift in meat and dairy overproduction and overconsumption. This would amount to a 37% reduction of the anticipated mid-century heating of 0.32°C from meat and dairy alone, under projected business-as-usual production and consumption. Even a fraction of a degree of warming prevented would reduce significant harmful impacts. For instance, each 0.3°C projected warming prevented by the end of the century could reduce exposure to extreme heat for 410 million people, one study finds.[5] 

“These are incredibly hopeful findings. For so long, we have tiptoed around big meat and dairy companies and their unfettered growth as if they are somehow exempt from making the drastic changes required of everyone else on this planet. It’s always either the farmer or the consumer who has to change, while these companies decide what farmers grow, what they are paid and what we eat. We have shown that the pathway is clear,” said Shefali Sharma, senior agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic. 

Ahead of COP29, activists around the world are taking action against the meat and dairy industry, targeting global players in making these companies’ methane emissions visible.[6] Meat & dairy and animal feed giants routinely greenwash their climate impacts with false solutions and shallow pledges, while governments give them a free pass on climate action.

“Governments have to step up to the plate and drive the investments and rules that will get us on this hopeful pathway. It’s a pathway that rights wrongs in the food and agriculture sector by driving out overproduction and overconsumption of meat and dairy. It requires governments to support farmers and workers in a just transition and gives all of us a fighting chance to limit global heating while saving millions of lives and livelihoods,” said Shefali Sharma.

Scientists agree that methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO₂) over 20 years, must come down rapidly this decade to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Despite science pointing to livestock as the largest human-made source of methane, the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) – launched at COP26 in 2021 – focuses on a drastic and fast reduction of methane from the fossil fuel sector only, and does not call for a drastic reduction in methane emissions from the meat and dairy industry.[7] [8]

ENDS

Notes:

[1] The report “Turning down the heat: Pulling the Climate Emergency Brake on Big Meat and Dairy” is available in English. See also Executive Summary and a detailed media briefing.

[2] According to the report, the estimated methane emissions of the 5 largest meat and dairy companies together (JBS, Marfrig, Minerva, Cargill and Dairy Farmers of America) exceed the combined reported methane emissions of 5 big fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil, Shell, Total Energies, Chevron and BP (figure 6, page 21).

The report finds that JBS, the behemoth of the livestock industry, would rank 5th, if put on a list alongside the reportedly biggest methane emitting corporations (Table 1), and rivals the methane emissions reported for major oil companies ExxonMobil and Shell combined. 

The report relies on the Top 100 corporate fossil fuel methane emitters from: Influence Map (2024) Carbon Majors Database. Note: Emission data reported in the Carbon Majors Databases for fossil fuel companies far exceed emissions reported by those companies themselves in their publications. This is mainly due to oil companies not fully including Scope 3 emissions in their self-reporting.

[3] FAO (2018). The future of food and agriculture – Alternative pathways to 2050. Summary version. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome. 60 pp.

[4] Willett W et al. (2019) Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems. The Lancet 2019. In the planetary health diet whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes comprise a greater proportion of foods consumed. Meat and dairy constitute important parts of the diet but in significantly smaller proportions than whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.

[5]  Lenton et al (2023). Quantifying the human cost of global warming. Nature Sustainability 6, 1237–1247.

[6] Visuals of global protests available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

[7] UNEP IMEO (2022). An Eye on Methane: International Methane Emissions Observatory 2022. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi. Figure 1, page 8.

[8] 158 governments have signed the Global Methane Pledge committing to collectively cut methane by 30% this decade, while the United Nations suggest that methane emissions from all sectors must come down by 45% by 2030.

Contacts:

Shefali Sharma, senior agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic, [email protected], m.+49-151-40778378

Luisa Colasimone, agriculture communication lead for Greenpeace Nordic, [email protected], m.+351-910-678-050 (also WA/Signal) and +32-479-100-067.

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), [email protected]. Follow @greenpeacepress for our latest international press releases.