I read with interest Pete Dickenson’s article, A New COP Climate Deadlock Looms (Socialism Today, issue No.282, November 2024). He rightly talks about the controversy regarding CO2 emissions and the reluctance of capitalist governments to challenge the powerful oil industry. Towards the end of the article he says that another highly controversial issue could feature at COP29, that of livestock emissions. He then states that “methane emissions from cattle are major drivers of global warming, since methane is up to a hundred times more damaging than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas [….] and ending livestock rearing would make a major contribution to tackling climate change”.
The controversy that Pete is rightly concerned about is how a policy of ending livestock would be implemented globally in a fair and just way. However, many people, including scientists, would find his statement itself as controversial.
Scientists agree that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and that emissions must be reduced. But methane is also an unstable gas that remains in the atmosphere for only about twelve years. Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years. This means that if methane emissions remain stable over time, the amount of methane in the atmosphere also remains stable. If the emissions are even slightly reduced, the amount in the atmosphere falls relatively quickly, which results in cooling. This is not the case with CO2, which accumulates in the atmosphere, and even if the emissions right now were completely stopped the accumulated CO2 would still warm the planet for thousands of years to come.
For this reason researchers from Oxford Martin School have developed an alternative measurement of equivalence between methane and CO2, that takes into account the vast difference in endurance of the two gases in the atmosphere. This calls into question the measurements adopted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which do not take that into account, and which Pete quotes.
The alternative measurement shows that the environmental damage of livestock is very much overstated. The researchers make it very clear that this does not leave meat and dairy off the hook. But it does mean that even if all livestock was abolished, we would still be left with the same problem of global warming. It also means that completely ending livestock farming is unnecessary. However, it will have to be significantly reduced, first and foremost in the West, where meat consumption is the highest – enabled by the industrial farming, which in turn has been made possible by the fossil fuel industry.
From this it follows that excessive livestock emissions are a by-product of the fossil fuel industry and the phasing out of fossil fuels would inevitably bring the livestock numbers back to a sustainable level. The undeniable fact is that humans have kept livestock for many thousands of years, without any impact on climate. It was the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism and industrial farming that began the process towards the current problems of global climate change.
There would be some benefit in reducing livestock in the short term, which might be important if the climate reaches a tipping point. But it won’t stop climate change in the longer run; it has been compared to having a cold shower while the house is burning.
The fossil fuel industry has made factory farming possible in many ways, including growing animal feed crops on an industrial scale by clearing the Amazon and other crucial habitats. This contributes to CO2 emissions, and consequently to methane. But industrial agriculture produces crops for human consumption too. Tonnes of pesticides are used in both. Pesticides are derivatives of the oil industry, and their usage depletes the soil, which unlocks carbon stored in it.
As emitters of CO2, pesticides must be more damaging, but aren’t talked about nearly as much as livestock. Is it because livestock farmers are an easier target than the oil industry? The war industry is also a big pollutant, but of course few capitalist policy makers point a finger at it and, sadly, rarely do scientists, who are most likely pressed to look for immediate, achievable solutions. Doesn’t it look like cows have been made a scapegoat?
One might say that the big meat industry is also powerful and not an easy target for policy makers. True, but when the need to reduce ruminant numbers is talked about, the finger is almost never pointed at the US feedlots, for example. Pete is absolutely right to say that removing livestock from poor people in the ‘Global South’, as their only source of protein, would be inconceivable under capitalism. But capitalism would still strive to do exactly that.
Looking back to what actually happened at COP29 shows this. The Livestock and Climate Solutions Hub was launched, aimed at supporting the transition of small-scale animal keeping (predicted to become larger) to “climate-smart, sustainable livestock production in low and middle-income countries” in the Global South. The “solutions would include advances in animal health, genetics and nutrition”. In other words, this is likely to mean genetically engineering poor people’s animals and so gaining patents on them, or imposing feed additives manufactured by Western corporations.
This will clearly be another attempt to privatise and monopolise agriculture in the Global South, which is mostly small-scale and ecological, but still feeds about 80% of the population. Western agribusiness, promoted by Western governments and the ubiquitous Gates Foundation, have been trying to take it over for a long time now, with some success. At the same time, factory farming was again completely ignored at COP29.
Socialists must oppose any attempt by Western corporations to interfere and privatise agriculture in the Global South. It is also necessary to counter the now prevailing narrative about the damaging effect of all animal agriculture – because it is false. Small herds that poor people rely on in the Global South have never been and never will be a problem for the climate. Socialists have to be extremely careful not to feed into the narrative that first dumps all livestock into the same bracket, only for capitalism to then cynically use it to attack small-scale farmers in the neo-colonial world, with the aim of making them dependent on Western agribusiness.
We don’t really know what effect the complete removal of livestock would have on the planet. Research rarely takes into account a holistic picture. It would also be near impossible to think about every eventuality in natural processes. Many farmers use animal manure as an excellent natural fertiliser for the soil and it would be extremely damaging if it was replaced by artificial fertilisers.
There is also research which shows that grazing animals can contribute to biodiversity and locking carbon in the soil. If all the land that is used for grazing or rearing livestock was freed up, no doubt some of it would become wild, and wild ruminants (which do exist) would move in. They wouldn’t replace today’s numbers of livestock, but why not then have an equally smaller number of domesticated ruminants on the land? Under socialist planning the consumption of meat would be significantly reduced, but hopefully pesticide use too. There should remain enough livestock to contribute to soil health, culture, or the need for protein.
Mira Glavardanov