To say Australians love eating meat is not an exaggeration for most people it makes up a large part of their daily diet. Until recently, arguments against our profligate meat consumption have been confined to the ideology of animal rights and animal cruelty activists.
However, the past week has seen a campaign fronted by former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and supported by a range of celebrities such as actress Joanna Lumley, the band Coldplay and tycoon Sir Richard Branson, urging consumers to slow climate change by having a ''Meat Free Monday''. While meat producers and other critics were quick to dismiss the campaign as ''gimmicky'', there is evidence that meat production is a major contributor to climate change.
In 2006, a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation concluded that emissions from global livestock production comprise about 18 per cent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, and could more than double by 2050. In Australia the livestock sector is the third largest source of emissions at 12per cent of the national total.
Most of these Australian emissions are caused by about 85million head of sheep and more than 28 million head of beef cattle, which as ruminant animals produce significant methane emissions as part of their normal digestive process. The greenhouse effect from methane is 23 times greater than carbon.
Professor Ross Garnaut, in his government-commissioned climate change review, says, ''The sheep and cattle industries are highly emissions intensive, and there are currently limited opportunities for the reduction of methane emissions.''
Earlier this year, Federal Minister for Agriculture Tony Burke announced the investment of $26.8million into research seeking to reduce methane emissions from the livestock sector. However, in a carbon-constrained future, unless there is a significant breakthrough that is able to cut methane emissions from sheep and cattle, Australian consumers as the Garnaut Review suggests, will come to rely on meat sources with lower emissions, such as chicken, pork and possibly kangaroo meat.
Given the considerable contribution of meat production to climate change, Sir Paul's campaign for meat-free Mondays does have environmental merit. Indeed, it mirrors the call of Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Nobel laureate and chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who in September 2008 urged people to ''give up meat for one day a week initially, and decrease it from there''. Pachauri said that reducing meat consumption offered individuals the most effective way to reduce their carbon footprint. ''In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about [emissions] reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,'' Pachauri said.
His advice is corroborated in a 2005 study from the University of Chicago, which compared the emissions impact of different American diets and found that an individual's meat consumption could have as great an impact on their carbon footprint as the car they drove. It concluded that reducing the average American's annual meat intake (at 27.7 per cent of total diet) by 20 per cent would bring a reduction in the carbon footprint equivalent to an individual switching from driving a Toyota Camry (average sedan) to a Toyota Prius (hybrid vehicle).
The report's author, Assistant Professor Gidon Eshel, emphasises that people do not have to become vegan to have an impact. ''If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference,'' he says.
Moreover, with numerous studies identifying a strong correlation between excessive red-meat consumption and cancer, heart disease and other non-communicable diseases, it is not only the health of the planet that stands to gain if our society was to reduce its red-meat intake.
So if you are concerned about climate change and want to lower your carbon footprint, before you buy a hybrid car, cancel your overseas flights or install a solar panel, you stand well to emulate Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's controversial example, where he reduced a RAAF stewardess on his VIP flight to tears, and insist that red meat is off the menu (although perhaps aim for greater tact). Or even better take Sir Paul McCartney's advice and opt for at least one meat-free day a week. It is after all, as he suggests, a relatively easy way for individuals to ''seriously benefit the planet''.
Roland Miller McCall recently completed an honours thesis in climate law at the Australian National University College of Law and is an aspiring environmental lawyer.
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