Positive COP28 meeting on role of red meat in food security

Left to right: Eric Schwaab (Environmental Defense Fund), Renata Miranda (Irrigation and Cooperativism, Brazil), Hayden Montgomery (Global Methane Hub), Donald Moore (Global Dairy Platform), Thanawat Tiensin (FAO), Julia Waite (MLA).

MLA’s CN30 Project Manager Julia Waite came away from the United Nation’s (UN) annual climate policy summit COP28 in Dubai feeling “pleasantly surprised” by the positive discussions around the role of livestock in the future of food.

“We came in anticipating anti-meat sentiment, as has been the case in previous years, but instead the critical importance of sustainable livestock production and red meat protein was front and centre,” Ms Waite said.

“The conversations centred on global examples of successful sustainable intensification, reduced supply chain waste and loss, and the critical importance of red meat for nutrition in low to middle income countries.

“The UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) led discussions about access to red meat and how to ensure more equitable distribution to populations that are under-consuming red meat, while balancing the impact of over-consumption in some affluent countries.

“The FAO says population growth will require an increase in the volume of animal protein by an additional 21 per cent to 2050, which will largely occur in Africa then the Americas followed by Asia. The challenge is, how do we produce more beef without the proportionate increase in emissions?”

The COP28 summit of 199 countries is the first in a three-year series designed to flesh out a road map to ensure the sustainability of food systems in responding to climate change.

COP29 in Azerbaijan next year will move from a global to a regional focus with a view to costing and financing action, culminating in COP30 in Brazil in 2025 which aims to establish country action plans, monitoring and accountability.

Ms Waite was a guest speaker in sessions on the role of livestock in meeting global climate, food security and nutrition goals, and global livestock industry commitments to mitigation and adaptation at scale.

“The clear message our delegation heard at COP was that we have an ethical obligation to meet the protein needs of a growing population, in line with healthy diets, but we must do so without exceeding emissions thresholds to halt long-term temperature warming,” she said.

“We cannot avoid our role as major methane contributors, but any progress towards climate goals must be in step with progressing other sustainable development goals, such as ending poverty, hunger and ensuring access to healthy diets.”

In the UN FAO report launched during COP, Pathways towards lower emissions, global livestock emissions from livestock were revised down from 14.5% of the world total to 12%, proportionate to other industries. Globally, methane from ruminants must be reduced by 11-30% by 2030, and 24-47% by 2050.

The FAO also detailed how methane-heavy sectors could help to limit global warming to the goal of 1.5⁰C.

Sustainable intensification was the focus of achieving mitigation, Ms Waite said, which highlighted the top three strategies that would deliver most emissions reduction. These were production efficiency, improvements in animal health, and improvements in animal breeding for feed efficiency and other production traits.

“These three have a strong correlation with farm performance so that’s good news for Australian producers, that sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand,” she said, quoting a recent MLA report where modelling showed that through production efficiencies alone, Australian livestock emissions could be reduced by 15%.

“This is low-hanging fruit industry can make incremental progress on, and we don’t need to wait for new technologies to get started.” 

Australia and other well-developed agricultural regions will be expected to take care of business themselves to demonstrate global leadership on reducing livestock emissions, she said, with delegates having very positive discussions with cattle councils from Canada and the United States.

“We need to continue to demonstrate Australia is one of the most efficient countries to produce predominantly pasture-raised meat with the lowest GHG footprint. Every country has different production system parameters, and Australia has a unique opportunity to show we can produce a high-quality protein from relatively low-quality pastoral land.

“Initiatives that reduce food loss, food waste and extend the shelf life of protein to the 100-plus countries we currently export to will reflect positively. So will our $150 million R&D portfolio of sustainability projects focused on Australian production, which can translate to emerging markets with similar environmental landscapes such as African savannah nations.

“Just the fact that we are seeing more rational discussion about sustainable livestock production in terms of climate impact globally is very heartening.”