The “red meat” corporations have been scrambling to impugn the simple facts that meat is bad for human health, appallingly cruel to the animals it kills, and devastating to the environment. They thought they could disguise the latter fact in 2017 by proudly announcing a “Carbon Neutral 2030” target, with much fanfare and obfuscation.

Now, much more inaudibly, they have confirmed that they are walking away from their always doubtful net zero undertaking. The news was almost hidden in a Red Meat Advisory Council statement quietly released on 26 June, with the review admitting that the target was “not achievable.”

That review was launched in 2019, meaning they spent the last six years working out what we have been telling them all this time (for free): the best and quickest way to reduce carbon emissions is to stop breeding and eating animals. Going vegan is the easiest and most delicious way to combat climate change.

While human-accelerated climate change has dominated news headlines for decades, animal agriculture has only started getting the attention it deserves in the past decade or so. Still, the science is clear.

The world’s most comprehensive analysis of diet and emissions to date found that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution, and land use than diets that include even 100g of meat daily.

One reason animal-derived products have such a high impact on the planet is that ruminant animals emit methane, a greenhouse gas up to 80 times more potent than CO2 at warming the Earth in the short term. This gas, like CO2, prevents the Earth’s natural cooling cycle, and scientists warn that methane reductions of 30% from 2020 levels must happen in the next five years to keep global warming below 2°C.

Emissions aren’t the only way meat harms the planet. Animal farming also drives 79% of Australian deforestation, demolishing valuable carbon sinks and native animal habitat, such as that vital to the now-endangered koala.

To add to this, animal agriculture is a thirsty industry. On a hot Aussie day, a single cow used for dairy guzzles up to 250 litres of water, and our drought-prone nation is attempting to sustain more than two million of them. That’s in addition to 30 million cows and bulls bred for beef, and around 70 million sheep.

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