Animal Agriculture Imposes Over $2 Trillion Annual Global Financial Burden Due to Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A new analysis estimates that the emissions from producing animal-based food, including meat, dairy, and eggs, create a global financial burden exceeding $2 trillion per year. This cost is borne by society, not the livestock industry, and is attributed to the external impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, such as worsening heatwaves, droughts, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise. Livestock farming is responsible for 12.5% of the world’s total annual GHG emissions. The analysis uses established methods to assign monetary values to emissions from high-emitting industries to quantify this financial burden. While consumers play a role, the authors also point to the influence of industry lobbying for subsidies and marketing strategies that make animal-based food artificially cheap, shifting responsibility to those who shape food environments.
