May 10, 2021 1:42 pm
Today the livestock and feed agriculture sectors are considered among the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The deforestation of land for grazing, the production of feed, and methane emissions are just some of the causes of the link between intensive farming and climate change. About 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the meat and dairy industries. But there is more. These companies are also responsible for some of the misinformation about the climate crisis.
According to the logic of livestock farms, it makes sense to hide, at all costs, the link between their products and global warming, because recognizing the reality of the climate crisis and one’s responsibility for causing it becomes a risk for sales. This was also the case for the fossil fuel industries that for decades drove the climate denial machine through funding, communication strategies and propaganda, hindering, limiting and delaying any kind of government regulation in defense of the climate and the environment.
According to Jennifer Jacquet, professor of environmental studies at New York University (NYU) and one of the authors of a new study published in the journal Climatic Change, there are, however, substantial differences between the behavior of the two industries, that of meat and that of ‘extraction and production of fossil products. The second decided to deny the existence of climate change short, while, at least so far, the meat sector has mainly tried to minimize the link between its products and climate change.
strategy
While not having the same weight in the climate crisis and in the political system, Jacquet observes, the meat industries are nonetheless very active in financing campaigns and pressure groups, especially if we consider the figures spent in relation to their size. For example, from 2000 to 2020, the study says, US agribusiness giant Tyson paid more than $ 3 million to political campaigns. This is paltry when compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Exxon spent in the same period, but, in proportion to the company’s revenue, Tyson spent twice as much as Exxon on political campaigns and 33 percent on more in lobbying.
The entire livestock sector, Jacquet continues, has spent millions of dollars in lobbying against climate policies. According to the study, the ten largest meat companies in the United States have funded campaigns and politicians, mostly Republicans, in order to thwart environmental policies. Since 2000, six major US industry associations – the National cattlemen’s beef association, the National pork producers council, the North american meat institute, the National chicken council, the International dairy foods association and the American farm bureau federation – have spent a total of about $ 200 million in lobbying and lobbying against climate policies such as the cap-and-trade (a system to reduce emissions that involves creating a market and trading in emission allowances), the Clean air act (the federal law to limit air pollution), and the rule that requires companies to report their emissions.
As Jacquet explains, these are trade associations that regularly publish research aimed at diminishing the link between the meat industry and climate change, and that their products have less impact on global warming than they actually do. These associations have influenced both public opinion through science and public discourse on science itself.
Meat and dairy companies are funding politicians in the United States because it’s a strategy that works
In some cases, US cattle and dairy companies have moved in parallel with the fossil fuel industry, often following the strategies and path laid out by the climate denier machine. In 2009, for example, Tyson and other meat companies, worried about the system cap-and-trade proposed by the American clean energy and security act, they worked alongside the fossil fuel industry to stop the law, which in fact never passed discussion in the House of Representatives. Had it passed, it would have been the first congressional law to directly address the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. From the cap-and-trade to the Kyoto Protocol and the Clean Power Plan (an Obama-era policy to reduce the carbon emissions of each US state), agribusiness and livestock companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to limit or block federal policies against the climate crisis, the study says.
Meat and dairy companies are funding political candidates in the United States because it’s a strategy that works. Just as it has worked – and continues, in part, to do so – for the fossil fuel industry. With this in mind, the authors also assessed the transparency of emissions reports, commitments to decrease emissions, and the influence on public opinion and politics of ten US meat and dairy companies. According to the evidence they gathered, all ten US companies have helped undermine climate-related policies.
In this context, it must be remembered that meat and dairy companies have a closer relationship with consumers than those in the fossil fuel sector. “In a way, I think people are more familiar with these meat and dairy brands, or at least to the extent they are familiar with them, I think it’s a closer relationship. And so I think this will partly affect our view of their responsibility, ”observes Jacquet.
Donations to universities and researchers
Responsibilities that companies continue, determined, to evade on several fronts. The meat industry also funds experts and academics in order to minimize or deny the causal link between industry activities and climate change. The goal is to sow confusion where, in reality, there is widespread scientific agreement. From this point of view it is interesting to observe that research financed by the meat industry, as well as that financed by the fossil fuel industry, promotes the objectives of the sector itself and, for this reason, one must ask whether it can be considered reliable. .
The study published in Climatic Change highlights that many meat and dairy companies in the United States make donations to universities or specific researchers in order to minimize their responsibility in the climate crisis – among the institutes Jacquet cited are the University of Arkansas and the University of California at Davis and, in particular, researcher Frank Mitloehner, “a representative example of the growing way in which the livestock agribusiness has been able to use the same strategies as climate change deniers to distort the debate on animal production and its environmental effects ”, wrote researcher Vasile Stanescu about Mitloehner.
The difference, however, is that research on the climatic and environmental implications of farming and meat production is less substantial than that on the fossil industry: there is less expertise and fewer publications, says Jacquet. This is partly because the first large-scale study was in 2006, so this is an area of study that has emerged quite recently. That year, FAO published a 390-page report titled Livestock’s long shadow (The long shadow of farms), according to which animal farming represents a “great threat to the environment” and has a “profound and widespread” impact.
Institutions are poorly equipped to deal with large private and transnational companies
But the study published in Climatic Change also addresses other aspects of the link between the meat industry and climate change. Jacquet explained that one of the objectives of the study, in particular, was to evaluate the diffusion of the concept of responsibility and its application, shedding light on individual companies in the sector, even outside the United States. According to the analysis, among the 35 largest meat and dairy companies in the world, only four have committed to zero emissions by 2050. In particular, according to the study, these commitments focus on managing energy use in supply chains rather than on the actual reduction of emissions.
The research also compares the emissions of companies, measured in a scenario of normal activity, with those of the countries of the headquarters, to observe their contribution to the commitments made by states under the Paris agreement. The results show that many of these companies emit so much that if their emissions were to be added to those of the countries where their headquarters are located, the final quantity would exceed the limit set for individual states to keep global warming below 1. , 5 degrees.
For example, according to the authors’ calculations, emissions from two companies, Fonterra in New Zealand and Nestlé in Switzerland, would make up more than 100 percent of the amount set for the two countries over the next decade.
This result is the result of complex calculations that take into account the fact that many companies are based in one country but own agricultural land in another. However, Jacquet pointed out, the commitments of the Paris agreement do not work like this and “if we applied the calculation also to fossil fuels, things would be very different”. But these calculations offer a new perspective that may prove useful in framing responsibilities in the climate emergency. Institutions are poorly equipped to deal with large private and transnational companies. This is why it is essential to shed light on their work and how they act.
“We are trying to get these companies to change what they physically do to the Earth system. To do this, we can use the democratic process and its laws, but they happen to have corrupted this system in their favor. Personally, I find it frustrating, and I think most people share that feeling, ”said Jacquet. “In the era of the anthropocene, it seems important to me to analyze how companies are shaping public opinion and our democratic systems”.
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