Faced with climate breakdown, token veggie burgers or vegan sausage rolls just don’t cut the mustard (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Ask most people to think about their contribution to climate change and the first things that come to mind are likely to be their polluting car or that flight to the Med they took last summer. Their dinner plate is not usually one of them.

Yet our meat-heavy diets are copping a lot of flak as one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change. Only last week, the world’s top climate scientists published a new report warning that reducing the amount of meat we eat will be absolutely crucial to averting climate breakdown.

It’s not the first report to warn us that the way we’re feeding humanity is damaging our natural world beyond repair, and it probably won’t be the last. But the grimness of the findings seems to be perfectly matched by the apathy with which our political and corporate world has reacted to it.



With one truly remarkable exception. Following the landmark report, there’s at least one institution in the UK that has taken drastic action. As part of a series of measures to tackle the climate emergency, Goldsmith’s University, has banned the sales of beef on their campus.


This is the kind of bold, uncompromising measure that’s bound to attract controversy, especially from those who love beef and hate bans. But there is absolutely no doubt that something needs to be done to cut the amount of meat we eat in the western world, and governments, corporate and public institutions all have a role to play.

Take this little known fact: there are now an estimated 70 billion farm animals in the world, that’s 10 for each person alive today. Nearly two thirds of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs; just over a third are humans and just four per cent are wild animals.

The vast majority of these animals are being raised in more and more intensive conditions on industrial farms. The waste that’s created contributes to the massive spread of dead zones in the oceans as well as the degradation of rivers, lakes, and coastal seas.

What’s more, all these animals have to eat. And what do we feed them on? It’s been estimated that between 70 and 90 per cent of the soya grown around the world is not turned into soya milk, tofu or other food for humans – it’s used to produce animal feed to fatten chickens, cows and other factory-farmed animals. And feed producers are driving the destruction of globally important forests and other precious habitats to grow it.

As with many other environmental issues, individual action is important but will only get you so far.

In a nutshell, our over-consumption of meat and dairy is destroying the natural world. And since we depend on it for our survival, we may eventually end up destroying ourselves too – unless we change course, that is.

Scientists and health professionals say that we have to reduce the amount of meat and dairy we’re eating by about 70 per cent by 2030 if we’re to stabilise the climate. This works out as eating one portion of chicken and fish once a week and red meat once a month – with a heavy emphasis on home-cooked meals made from vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds.



As with many other environmental issues, individual action is important but will only get you so far. We can definitely all make a difference by eating less meat and dairy, and the message is already getting through.

A recent survey found that one third of people were eating less meat and dairy due to concern for their health, animal welfare and the environment. This is genuine progress, no doubt about it.

But what about the corporations that produce and sell the vast amount of meat we still eat? Big fast food giants have made a few timid attempts to catch up with the zeitgeist. Burger King teamed up with Impossible Burger on a plant-based Whopper; McDonalds is trialing veggie chicken nuggets in Norway; and KFC recently trialed a new vegan burger in ‘selected restaurants’ across the UK.

But here’s the thing: brands whose vegan products go viral on Facebook are still aggressively promoting burgers and fried chicken. KFC recently launched a new chicken and bacon burger with billboards taunting vegans and in China it’s reportedly opening two new stores a day where chicken is the order of the day.

If you’re looking for plant-based options on the McDonalds 99p saver menu, you’ll be completely out of luck – unless your appetite can be sated by a side portion of fries or a few salad leaves.

And it’s not just about fast food chains. The world’s leading consumer brands – the likes of Nestle, Mondelez and Unilever – are not exactly pulling their weight either. Back in 2010, these companies promised to end deforestation by 2020 through ‘responsible sourcing’ of cattle, palm oil, soya and other commodities.


Since then, at least 50million hectares of forest – an area twice the size of the UK – is estimated to have been destroyed to produce those foodstuffs.

Eating less meat and dairy is one practical thing we can do to tackle climate change. But big brands and food companies must also take responsibility for transforming the food system – which means replacing most of the meat and dairy in their products with healthy, plant-based foods.

Faced with climate breakdown, token veggie burgers or vegan sausage rolls just don’t cut the mustard.

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