Tackling climate change through livestock

November 2013. FAO.  “Tackling climate change through livestock”. A global assessment of emmissions and mitigation opportunities.

Gerber, P.J., Steinfeld, H., Henderson, B., Mottet, A., Opio, C., Dijkman, J., Falcucci, A. & Tempio, G.
FAO, Rome. 91 pages

An important emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), the livestock sector also has a large potential to reduce its emissions.

This is the main conclusion drawn by the report “Tackling climate change through livestock”. This newly released report provides the most comprehensive global assessment made to-date of the livestock sector’s GHG emissions and its mitigation potential.

The report also presents a detailed assessment of the magnitude, the sources and pathways of emissions from different production systems and supply chains. Relying on life cycle assessment, statistical analysis and scenario building, it identifies concrete options to reduce emissions.

It comes at a time when the world needs to urgently reduce GHG emissions to avert catastrophic climate change. The livestock sector can make an important contribution to such international efforts by offsetting some of the sector’s emission increases, which are expected as demand for livestock products is projected to grow by 70 percent by 2050.

SEE ALSO: Farmers Could Cut Emissions While Boosting Production, SciDev, November 1
The challenge is reducing emissions while meeting the soaring demand for livestock products — a demand that is projected to rise by more than 70 per cent between 2005 and 2050.


Learning events
Tackling climate change through livestock: Global assessment and multi-stakeholder initiative

In October 2013, FAO organized an online learning event for the Community of practice for climate change mitigation in agriculture of the MICCA team and Livestock Information, Sector Analysis and Policy Branch of FAO in collaboration with the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock and LEAP, Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance. The event consisted of two online webinars and facilitated discussions between the sessions.

Webinar 1: Livestock life cycle analysis and climate change mitigation – 22 October 2013Recording of introduction and presentations
Recording of the summary and closing of the webinar

• Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock supply chains: LCA assessments for monogastrics and ruminants – Carolyn Opio, Natural Resource Officer, FAO – Presentation slides
• Climate change mitigation in the livestock sector: overall potential, options and case studies – Anne Mottet, Livestock Policy Officer, FAO – Presentation slides 

Webinar 2: Global multi-stakeholder initiatives for livestock and environmental concerns – 24 October 2013

Recording of the webinar

• LEAP, a partnership on the environmental benchmarking of livestock supply chains – Alison Watson, Project Manager, FAO – Presentation slides
• Private sector‘s role and interest in LEAP – Nicolas Martin, Policy advisor, European Feed Manufacturers' Federation (FEFAC) – Presentation slides
• Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock – Jeroen Dijkman, Senior Officer in Livestock Sector Policy, FAO –Presentation slides 

Online discussions were carried out alongside the webinars through our Dgroup (email list) and LinkedIn group.