World Bank authority advocates vegetarianism to fight climate change

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Lord Stern: 'People should give up eating meat to halt climate change' People

should give up eating meat to halt climate change, according to Lord Stern

of Brentford, a leading authority on global warming.

 

 

By Murray Wardrop

Published: 7:00AM GMT 27 Oct 2009

Lord Stern predicts that eating meat could become as socially unacceptable

as drink driving Photo: EPA

 

Lord Stern, author of the 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global

warming, predicts that eating meat could in the future become as socially

unacceptable as drink driving.

 

Livestock farming has come under fire in recent years from environmental

campaigners because methane from cattle and pigs is a significant source of

greenhouse gases.

 

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Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, believes that the

Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December should call for an

increase in the price of meat and other foods that contribute to climate

change.

 

In an interview with The Times, he said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water

and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the

world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

 

He added: “I think it’s important that people think about what they are

doing and that includes what they are eating.

 

“I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed

radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is

responsible.

 

“They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

 

Meat producers reacted angrily to the suggestions.

 

Jonathan Scurlock, of the National Farmers Union, said: “Going vegetarian is

not a worldwide solution. It’s not a view shared by the NFU. Farmers in this

country are interested in evidence-based policymaking. We don’t have a

methane-free cow or pig available to us.”

 

Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming

gas. UN figures suggest that meat production is responsible for about 18 per

cent of global carbon emissions, including the destruction of forest land

for cattle ranching and the production of animal feeds.

 

However, British farmers say more money and support is needed to maintain

the traditional countryside in the face of increased environmental demands

from government.

 

New climate change targets to cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050

will require farms to reduce methane produced by cows, cut use of fossil

fuels and use less polluting fertilisers.

 

Landowners fear that the rules will add to increasing red tape from Europe

and competition from abroad to make it even more difficult to make a living

out of farming.

 

Up to 20,000 delegates from192 countries are due to attend the UN conference

in the Copenhagen, which aims to thrash out a deal to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions sufficiently to prevent an increase in global temperatures of more

than 2 degrees centigrade.