Paul McCartney, the former Beatle, and Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, visited the Parliament last Thursday, where they spoke of the benefits of cutting down on meat consumption, particularly in the context of global warming. They suggested that people should abstain from eating meat one day a week, explaining that in addition to help reduce emissions it would have health benefits and improve food security as well.

Several reasons were mentioned in support of their proposal. Statistics suggest that agriculture currently accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with 60% of this figure coming from livestock. In addition, not only does agriculture contribute more towards global warming than the transport sector (12% of GHGs) globally, but methane, which is released during the process of livestock production, is far more toxic than CO2 and also stays in the atmosphere longer.

Under current meat consumption trends deforestation has also become an increasing concern, as forests are cut down in favour of creating more pasture lands, a trend which is particularly worrying in the Amazon forest. The water intensity of meat production, which currently stands at 8% of global water use, was another argument used by the two speakers, to support their views that meat consumption should be reduced.

In addition to the environmental benefits mentioned above that having a global meat-free day would ensure, McCartney and Pachauri also explained that such a system would also promote food security as well as having notable health benefits.

Summing up the importance of the issue, McCartney noted that ‘A new ethical issue [climate change] has arisen and meat eating is no longer a personal choice but one that will affect the whole planet’. And when asked whether taxing meat would be a good way of inducing behaviour changes Mr Pachauri agreed, saying that ‘a tax would make a lot of sense’.