As negotiations get underway at COP28, we compiled a list of the leading research documenting the connection between meat and greenhouse gas emissions.
Note that there are developments in reducing the methane production of cattle. Supplementing their food with seaweed lets the bacteria in their gut fully digest the grass, breaking the methane to CO2
As it is if you removed the cattle and re-wilded the land they were on, that land would produce as much methane and CO2 as the cows did, as the same bacteria would break down fallen grass, or work in deer guts and no one will feed the wild land and deer seaweed
Note that there are developments in reducing the methane production of cattle. Supplementing their food with seaweed lets the bacteria in their gut fully digest the grass, breaking the methane to CO2
As it is if you removed the cattle and re-wilded the land they were on, that land would produce as much methane and CO2 as the cows did, as the same bacteria would break down fallen grass, or work in deer guts and no one will feed the wild land and deer seaweed
This is sometimes true, sometimes false. In areas where forests are cut down for cattle, the carbon offset of the forest “just wins”.
But in marginal land, the cattle are arguably a net gain in greenhouse gasses over leaving the land untouched