Climate-Warming Methane Emissions from the World’s Biggest Livestock Companies Are Bigger Than From Major Oil and Gas Companies - Inside Climate News
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Ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Brazil, advocacy groups are pushing for companies and governments to set meaningful emissions targets to lower emissions from livestock.

Ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Brazil, advocacy groups are pushing for companies and governments to set meaningful emissions targets to lower emissions from livestock.

The world’s biggest meat and dairy companies are responsible for emitting more climate-warming methane than all of the countries in the European Union and United Kingdom combined, according to a new assessment published Monday.

They looked at 45 major livestock and dairy companies, finding that they generated about 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023—roughly the same amount as reported for Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest oil producer.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    7 days ago

    Because oil and gas don’t emit methane into the atmosphere if they can help it. It’s a sellable product to them.

    I do agree that agriculture methane emissions should be dealt with, but the headline is misleading.

    • solo@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      I don’t think it’s a misleading title because leaks are considered emissions.

      The leaks from oil & gas are huge to begin with, and some of them are even called super-emitting methane leaks. From another article:

      About 40% of human-caused methane emissions come from leaks from fossil fuel exploration, production and transportation. These rose by almost 50% between 2000 and 2019. Another 40% comes from agriculture(…) All are forecast to rise.

      Not only that these leaks and are not visible to the naked eye, so

      the big challenge is knowing exactly how much methane is being emitted, where it is being emitted and for how long it has been emitted. [source UN environment program]