Shun meat, says UN climate chief

Other agendas are starting to become more apparent:

People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN's top climate scientist.

BBC

Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening. UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. "The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions," he told BBC News.

Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind's greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.

Dr Pachauri will be speaking at a meeting organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), whose main reason for suggesting people lower their consumption of meat is to reduce the number of animals in factory farms.

Dr Pachauri has just been re-appointed for a second six-year term as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC

CIWF's ambassador Joyce D'Silva states: "I would like governments to set targets for reduction in meat production and consumption," she said. "The NFU is committed to ensuring farming is part of the solution to climate change, rather than being part of the problem". Part of a negotiated climate change treaty, and it would be done fairly, so that people with little meat at the moment such as in sub-Saharan Africa would be able to eat more, and we in the west would eat less."