They found that South America is the region with the largest share of animal-based food emissions, followed by south and south-east Asia and then China. The researchers built a database that provided a consistent emissions profile of 171 crops and 16 animal products, drawing data from more than 200 countries. But if people are concerned about climate change, they should seriously consider changing their dietary habits.” You can’t just impose your views on others. “A lot of this comes down to personal choice. “I’m a strict vegetarian and part of the motivation for this study was to find out my own carbon footprint, but it’s not our intention to force people to change their diets,” said Jain. The researchers said that societies should be aware of this significant discrepancy when addressing the climate crisis. A single kilo of beef, meanwhile, creates 70kg of emissions. The difference in emissions between meat and plant production is stark – to produce 1kg of wheat, 2.5kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. You need more biomass to feed animals in order to get the same amount of calories. “To produce more meat you need to feed the animals more, which then generates more emissions. “All of these things combined means that the emissions are very high,” said Xiaoming Xu, another University of Illinois researcher and the lead author of the paper. Livestock also produce large quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The paper calculates that the majority of all the world’s cropland is used to feed livestock, rather than people. Grazing animals require a lot of land, which is often cleared through the felling of forests, as well as vast tracts of additional land to grow their feed. Animal-based food production contributes to the most emissions
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