Emily Armistead is Interim Executive Director at Madre Brava.One of the most striking, and widely shared, images of the recent catastrophic California fires was of a McDonald’s restaurant in Pasadena engulfed in flames. A symbol of the American Dream going up in smoke, alongside the homes of the rich and famous, showed how inescapable climate change’s worst impacts are, even for the privileged. Indeed, scientists have since confirmed that climate change made the fires more likely. The wildfires are now fully contained, but the enduring image of a burning McDonald’s should also act as another powerful symbol – the role the food system, in particular meat and dairy production, plays in fuelling climate change. Food is responsible for around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions but is often overlooked in emissions reduction strategies. With corporate leadership from the likes of McDonald’s, and political will, its impact could be minimized with wins for the climate and human health.
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The fires are the latest in a pattern of climate impacts increasing in intensity and devastation. And as cries for climate action from some quarters multiply, we should not overlook the huge impact that the food system plays in heating the planet. The proportion of emissions from food production will grow as emissions from energy and transport reduce in a green transition. Over the past 25 years of climate action, the food system has often been forgotten – and therefore strategies to limit its impact are far behind where they need to be, despite solutions being literally on the table. The greatest contributor to food’s climate gases is the production and consumption of livestock. According to calculations based on IPCC figures and other research, the livestock sector alone may be responsible for around 20% of all climate emissions. The world’s biggest meat producers like JBS and Tyson Foods have emissions footprints on a par with some of the world’s fossil fuel companies. But unlike Shell and Exxon, meat companies, even fast-food giants like McDonald’s, are far less seen as the corporate face of climate breakdown. This absence of food in the climate space has been slowly shifting in recent years. Two years ago, at the COP28 Dubai climate summit, 159 governments signed a declaration on sustainable food and agriculture. Meanwhile some companies, particularly in the retail sector, are recognising that changing what they sell could help them meet corporate climate targets. A number of European supermarkets, including German giant Lidl, have made commitments to increase the share of plant proteins they sell, reducing products sourced from animals. Fast food giant McDonald’s, despite some forays into plant-based alternatives, is focusing its climate efforts on regenerative agriculture. This approach by itself, however, can’t provide the lev
