FAO Yields to Meat Industry Pressure on Climate Change

[Tim Gier]

Robert Goodland retired as lead environmental adviser at the World Bank Group after serving there for 23 years. His work was influential in my “We Could Be Heroes” column of May 15. He wrote the following piece for the New York Times:

The past year has been the warmest ever in the United States, with record heat sweeping across the country last week, causing at least 52 human deaths and also harming livestock. In fact, livestock are not only harmed by human-caused global-warming greenhouse gas, but also cause about 18 percent of it, according to “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” a 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report by FAO livestock specialists (who normally promote livestock).

In contrast, environmental specialists employed by two other United Nations specialized agencies, the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, have developed a widely-cited assessment that at least 51 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas is attributable to livestock. I’m one of those specialists.

One might expect the FAO to work objectively to determine whether the true figure is closer to 18 percent or 51 percent. Instead, Frank Mitloehner, known for his claim that 18 percent is much too high a figure to use in the U.S., wasannounced last week as the chair of a new partnership between the meat industry and FAO.

FAO’s new partners include the International Meat Secretariat and International Dairy Federation. Their stated objective is to “assess the environmental performance of the livestock sector” and “to improve that performance,” starting with a three-year project to establish “methods and guidelines.”

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