Yahoo News 7 Jan 10;
PARIS (AFP) – The world's top authority in farm animal health announced on Thursday it would launch a study into the role of meat in climate change.
The report, carried out by independent experts, is expected to be published "by the summer," Bernard Vallat, head of the World Organisation for Animal Health, known by its French acronym of OIE, said in Paris.
It is the first time in its nearly 85-year history that the 175-nation OIE is to carry out an environmental investigation.
The agency swaps information about diseases in farm animals and issues recommendations in veterinary scares such as H5N1 avian flu.
The probe coincides with mounting interest in the role of meat-eating in stoking climate change.
Farm animals are significant sources of greenhouse gases, either directly through methane emissions from digestion or indirectly, such as clearing forests for pasture and inputs used in raising cattle.
Vallat, who is the OIE's director general, said there had been a "very strong request" from member-states for the report.
The investigation's scope will be limited, and it will not seek to rival or replicate the work of the UN's global-warming scientists, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he said.
By some estimates, there will be a 50-percent surge in demand for animal protein by 2020 in order to feed the world's burgeoning population and demands from emerging economies, he said.
"Whatever happens, we are going to have to produce more animals to feed the planet," he told a press conference.
Celebrity vegans such as Paul McCartney are urging consumers to boycott meat as a personal contribution to fighting climate change.
A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of beef causes more greenhouse-gas and other pollution than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home, according to a 2007 study led by Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan.
Animal Health Body To Study Meat Impact On Climate
Gus Trompiz, PlanetArk 8 Jan 10;
PARIS - The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is to study the impact of meat output on climate change in the light of debate about meat's contribution to greenhouse emissions, the Paris-based body said on Thursday.
The initiative, which will be the OIE's first on an environmental issue, follows requests from its member countries to look at a question that has prompted calls to eat less meat.
Meat production is estimated to account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and some scientists have cited lower meat consumption as a way of tackling climate change.
A campaign led by former Beatle Paul McCartney to get people not to eat meat one day a week has also drawn attention to the issue.
But OIE Director-General Bernard Vallat warned against oversimplifying the issue, stressing factors such as the carbon-stocking role of pasture land would have to be evaluated.
"It's a question that needs to be studied with a lot of distance," he told a news conference. "We want to make a modest and independent contribution."
People also needed to be aware that livestock production generated milk and eggs as well as meat and so could not be sacrificed at a time of fast-growing protein demand among the world's population, he said.
"There is not yet a scientific model that can prove that our planet could do without milk, eggs or meat."
The study would thus likely recommend further research to find ways of limiting the direct effects of meat production on the environment, such as methane emissions, Vallat added.
Another focus for the OIE this year would be reducing cases of rabies, which kills 50,000 people worldwide annually, mainly following dog bites.
The body was notably calling for developing countries to devote more money to vaccinating dogs rather than just treating infected people which was much more expensive, Vallat said.
(Editing by Keiron Henderson)
