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On Tuesday last week, the traditionally fossil-fuel supporting International Energy Agency (IEA) published an astonishing report, entitled “Net Zero by 2050, a Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector“. Amongst the headlines, the IEA suggests that if humanity is to reach (net) zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, we must stop developing new oil and gas fields, new coal mines and new coal power stations from today. Which triggers the twin responses: “Wow!” and “Good luck with that one!”. The Japanese and Australian governments have already said it simply won’t happen.

Whilst rightly described as bold by environmentalists, the IEA’s report does have a significant hole in it, apart from an obvious lack of realism in the near term: there is no analysis of other greenhouse gases (GHG), i.e. only carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered. Other GHG now comprise 30-40% of global GHG emissions, as measured on the standard CO2 equivalence basis. As the IEA admits, we cannot limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C unless there is a “corresponding reduction” (their words) in other GHG.

Most of these other GHG arise from farming, especially livestock farming. On which topic …

There needs to be a vast reduction in livestock globally

Around half of the Earth’s land surface is now dedicated to human livestock: providing food and habitat for our cattle and sheep and, to a smaller degree, pigs and poultry. The change in global land use over the last fifty years is easily discernible in pictures from space, as the world’s diet has become increasingly meat-based. Forests and woodland are chopped down to make space for our animals; and most of the world’s grain is grown to feed them rather than us.

Is this sustainable? It seems unlikely. Eating animals, or keeping them for milk, is inevitably inefficient in terms of nutrition, land use, water consumption and energy consumption – even if we can control other aspects such as the use of chemicals. Efficiency isn’t everything … until the population reaches a certain size and we discover the planet just isn’t big enough for our dietary way of life.

Here in Britain we live in a sort of microcosm of the Earth, in that about half of our land surface is likewise devoted to livestock. Here, the impact of agriculture is so old and buried in history that it has almost completely captured the national imagination. It is hard to conceive of Britain otherwise than it appears. Areas such as the Lake District, which are the way they are primarily because of livestock farming, are regarded as areas of “outstanding natural beauty”. How beautiful might they be with a much smaller livestock population, where say 50-90% of the land (opinions differ as to the exact percentage that would then prevail), rather than 10%, is covered with trees and bushes? How much more populous and varied might be the fauna, as well as the flora?

There is currently a strong nostalgic movement that wants to return to the ‘old days’ of traditional (non-intensive) farming, which lasted for centuries. Unfortunately, just because something lasted for centuries in the past does not mean it can last for centuries in the future. In the past, Britons lived very differently from most of the world. The climate can cope when one small island re-landscapes itself; it cannot cope so easily when the whole world joins in.

For most of us, meat should be regarded as a luxury, not a staple

That, increasingly, is the viewpoint of climate scientists, the United Nations, environmentalists, and even some beef farmers themselves, such as the Shropshire-based farmer Wade Muggleton. And yet we still hold on to unsubstantiated ideas about protein deficiency if we don’t eat beef, and ones that are clearly mistaken about food shortages and rising food prices. Books such as Wilding by Isabella Tree have perpetuated the myth that veganism leads to huge monocultural grain plantations in countries such as Bolivia – ignoring the reality that most grain is grown to feed animals, and that veganism has nothing to do per se with farm size.

Eating organic meat is, regrettably, of no help when it comes to global warming. There may be many arguments – unrelated to climate – for giving animals more space in which to live; but more space on a crowded planet for GHG-emitting animals means less space for GHG-absorbing plants.

Another insidious myth is that we need animals to poo on the land in order to have decent soil and biodiversity. The award-winning biodiverse farm Tolhurst Organic, located in south Oxfordshire, has for many years been run without any reliance on animal products or animal manure. But it is difficult to shift the myth, especially as manure is in such plentiful supply. Manure is not the only option for fertilising land and improving soil structure; and there seems to be general agreement amongst environmentalists that the sheer volume of animal slurry currently produced is very bad for our ecology.

There are many difficult issues associated with eating meat, ranging from the debate about killing animals if we do to the impact on farmers’ livelihoods if we don’t. Perhaps one of these moral issues is the defining issue for you. But viewed ‘narrowly’ from the practical perspective of the global ecosystem, climate change, and possibly the long-term future of humanity, we should acknowledge the views of the scientific mainstream and reduce our meat intake – on six days out of seven, say, as the climate scientist David Mackay liked to suggest.

It is telling when even the IEA makes a side comment in a report dated 18th May 2021 about the path to Net Zero: “we estimate that reducing meat consumption in households with the highest levels of per capita consumption today to the global average level would reduce GHG emissions by more than 1 Gt CO2‐eq in 2050“. That’s a start – one that ignores land capital and the fact that the current average is now too high so the reduction needs to be much greater – but for a traditionally conservative and politically mainstream organization, it is a telling start indeed.

In the weekend’s Financial Times, Bill Gates outlines his green manifesto for corporate action. He lists four categories for the urgent attention of CEOs: investment, procurement, R&D and political dialogue. Companies can invest in green capital; buy their supplies from green providers; support green research; and express green opinions to their political representatives. He also suggests actions for policy makers, including proper carbon pricing.

Hard to disagree with any of that. But the elephant in the room, or perhaps I mean in his room, is our level of consumption.

Although he avoids mentioning it in the article, Gates is on record as saying that reducing consumption is not going to solve global warming. Which is not a surprise. We all justify our own choices; and someone who owns private jets is not going to take kindly to the suggestion that it would be helpful to get rid of them.

Instead, he offers up the idea that aviation emissions can be sorted out by switching to biofuels. Apparently he spends about $400 per tonne of emissions in purchasing biofuels to offset his plane trips; and he maintains that if enough wealthy individuals were to copy his example, prices would fall to a level that is more practical for normal impecunious travellers.

Up until this point, his article is refreshingly realistic. He points out, for instance, that trees have limited impact – that to offset American greenhouse gas emissions from tree planting, it would be necessary to cover over half of the Earth’s landmass with forests dedicated to the purpose. And that Americans make up just 4% of the global population, so even if such geo-engineering were internationally agreed upon, how could trees offset the other 96% of humanity?

It is understandable, if a little ironic, that this global realism fails him when he switches to the related topic of biofuels for aviation. But just as the Earth simply isn’t big enough for tree planting to offset the Western lifestyle, so biofuels are unlikely to meet the sector’s current energy demand, let alone a demand level that is inflated by widespread use of private jets.

A practical manifesto

A more realistic manifesto would tackle our levels of consumption. Reducing our usage of energy and materials is something most of us can do straightaway, without waiting for new technologies, economic frameworks or government policies. (The natural world is not waiting for them either.) If a large proportion of us consumers were, for the sake of argument, to knock a third off our current demand for fossil fuels, the impact would be greater than from any single technology or any government action, national or international.

People ask: what about jobs? what about tax-funded services like the British NHS? If we don’t ‘consume’, i.e. spend money, then the economy and social services will collapse. Or so goes the argument. The simple truth is that we could live in a world where we are materially poorer, in which jobs are greener and less well paid but not necessarily fewer in number, and in which welfare expenditure is protected, even if that means it uses up a higher proportion of our income than it does today.

We might even be happier. But because we are reluctant to give up what we have – even if it provides little enjoyment – we tell ourselves it is unreasonable, even economically naive, to ask people to consume less; that Gates is right, and salvation lies in technology.

Perhaps a reduction in the usage of energy and resources will result from meaningful (i.e. many times higher) carbon prices, which indeed he advocates. Timing is against us though; we cannot really afford to wait for politicians to agree on the economic mechanisms required to deliver these eye-watering prices or taxes.

Mathematicians and logicians like to distinguish between conditions that are necessary and conditions that are sufficient. In this language, Bill Gates might be correct that reducing our consumption levels will not be sufficient to halt global warming – and hence his manifesto; but, short of technological miracles, it is a condition for the survival of future generations that is almost certain to be necessary.