AG effects of Greenhouse Gases: Animal agriculture is linked to 55 percent of erosion, 60 percent of nitrogen pollution, and 70 percent of the global dietary phosphorus footprint. If global consumption of meat and dairy continues to grow at the current pace, the agricultural sector could consume about 70 percent of the allowable budget for all GHG emissions by mid-century (1). A significant proportion of these emissions are in the form of methane, a gas that is 83x more warming than CO2 during the period that it is in the atmosphere (2). Animal agriculture also contributes to other greenhouse gases such as ammonia from chicken urine, and nitrous oxide from fertilizers used to accelerate crop growth (3).

Climate Change and Biodiversity Linked: Rising temperatures and other climate impacts have seriously altered the composition, function, and structure of many ecosystems and species, some irreversibly. Policies to tackle both problems are clearly needed, but siloed approaches continue to dominate proposed solutions. There are also risks that some climate policies, such as the expansion of afforestation or bioenergy, will have increasingly negative risks on biodiversity (4).
Climate Calls for Diet Change: Reducing fossil fuel use is essential to stopping climate change, but this goal will remain out of reach unless global agriculture and eating habits are also transformed (5).

Redirecting AG Subsidies: The high number of government subsidies currently devoted towards animal agriculture could be used to transition such industries into more sustainable, and climate-friendly systems (6).

Download the document below to read the full list of the latest citations of evidence as to how animal exploitation undermines the progress of SDG Goal 13: Climate Action