Study: Six planets needed to eat like G20 meat-lovers

Another six planets would be needed if the whole world ate like the most meat-loving G20 countries, a major report on food-related carbon emissions has found.

Australia and Argentina have the highest per capita carbon footprints of all countries in the G20, largely because of their high levels of red meat consumption.

If all the world ate like Argentina, an extra 6.4 planets would be needed to accommodate the land use and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the study Diets for a Better Future, conducted by Swedish NGO Eat.

Wealthier countries were eating at the expense of the rest of the world, report author Brent Loken said, with the G20 countries accounting for 75 per cent of the global carbon food budget.

Of all the diets in the G20, only Turkey was below the threshold for the carbon budget.

No country is reaching its optimal intake of legumes and nuts, which both have a relatively low carbon footprint.

Loken says governments should change their official dietary guidelines to take account of climate change.

The report warns that developing countries’ diets are in danger of moving in the same direction as unhealthy “Western” diets. Loken argued that the speed of shifts in diet proved that the trends were reversible.

“If you look at many countries, such as China, the move toward an animal-based diet has happened in a generation,” he said.

Almost everyone in the world would need to adopt a flexitarian diet to stay within the Paris Agreement goals of 2C warming. This would mean no more than five servings of animal-sourced foods a week and about 2500 calories a day of mostly plant-based foods, with red meat in particular kept to a minimum.

Global food production accounts for approximately 24 per cent of annual greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to global electricity production. Nearly half comes from livestock production and rotting food waste, both of which produce potent methane.