Carbon emissions caused by 20 meat and dairy companies are higher than the emissions of Germany, France or Britain, a new report has found.
Scientific research has revealed that rich countries such as the UK need massive cuts to meat and dairy consumption to tackle the climate crisis.
But the industry received more than £348 billion from 2015 until 2020 from 2,500 investment companies, banks and pension funds, based on findings by Friends of the Earth and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung group.
According to The Guardian, this means meat production could increase by tens of millions of tonnes every year – taking up massive parts of agricultural land and causing deforestation to make space for livestock.
But large companies are buying up small ones and reduce competition, which means the chances of more sustainably-produced meat are lowering, the report said.
It read: “Industrial animal farming is on the rise and keeps pushing sustainable models out of the market.”
‘Code red for humanity’
The findings come after last month, a United Nations report prompted warnings of a “red code for humanity” because of humans’ impact on global heating.
The UN’s IPCC findings said people’s effect on the planet is already “locked-in” for decades to come, but that the climate crisis could get much worse.
It warned that without rapid and large-scale action to cut emissions, global temperatures will increase and pass a critical threshold of 1.5 degree Celsius over the next 20 years.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: He added: “The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.
“Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.”
“This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”
Global heating effects on the world – including Europe
In recent months, environmental problems included wildfires in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Russia and Italy.
There have also been floods across European countries which caused people to die in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Austria and Italy.
Guterres called for government leaders and all stakeholders to come together to avoid a “climate catastrophe” – and stressed there is “not time for delay and no room for excuses”.
But there are already climate change-related problems in every part of the world according to Friederike Otto, IPCC lead author and associate director at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.
Otto said there are actions people and world leaders can take to prevent worsening effects by staying within the targets.Another IPCC lead author, Helene Hewitt, told Reuters that previous papers might have underestimated the pace at which the Arctic sea is melting.
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