Were Brazilians to align their beef consumption with health recommendations, national emissions would drop significantly without affecting the economy—but a global effort must be made in tandem, a new study shows.
“In Brazil, approximately 60% of the country’s annual emissions stem from land use change and agriculture,” study authors Dr. Terciane Sabadini Carvalho and Luciana Parzianello, both from the Federal University of Parana in Brazil, write for Carbon Brief. As “one of the largest beef producers in the world,” cattle rearing is a major facet of the country’s economy, and it is directly linked to deforestation of the Amazon rainforest—a global concern, due to its importance as a carbon sink.
“Reducing red meat consumption is crucial not only for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, but also for improving public health.”
But emissions mitigation cannot be solely Brazil’s responsibility, they add. Reducing consumption would lead to a negative effect on the domestic price of beef, which could in turn lead to higher Brazilian beef exports and result “in less mitigation and a smaller reduction in deforestation.”
“Therefore, it is crucial for this change in habit to be followed by other economies worldwide”—notably those that heavily import Brazilian beef, including China, the United States, and the European Union.
But a shift off meat cannot be made without considering—and making efforts to avoid—negative economic outcomes for people and economies whose well-being is linked to animal production, the authors add.
Their study models two different scenarios of how a gradual reduction of beef consumption in Brazil would affect the economy and emissions. In one scenario, the researchers consider reducing beef consumption through a consumer preference change that occurs either naturally or as a result of formal interventions like information campaigns. The results show “virtually no impact on Brazilian GDP in 2050,” with a drop of about 0.03%.
In a second scenario, consumption declines as taxes on beef are raised over time from around 8% to approximately 40% in 2050. This would have a bigger economic effect: GDP would decline by 0.64% and exports by 1.5%. However, if the tax were revenue neutral—and the funds used to subsidize lower-carbon foods—GDP would decline by only 0.18%, “despite similar decreases in exports.”
Overall, the results show significant environmental and climate benefits, where a 40% reduction in beef consumption from 2022 to 2050 would help prevent deforestation of approximately 65,000 square kilometres, an area larger than Sri Lanka. It would also mitigate up to 2.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, “about one-third” of the total mitigation potential from dietary change presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on land.
