Plant-Rich Diets (#4 out of the top 80 climate solutions)
Consumption of meat and dairy, as well as overall calories, often exceeds nutritional recommendations. Paring down and favoring plant-based foods reduces demand, thereby reducing land clearing, fertilizer use, burping cattle, and greenhouse gas emissions.
SOLUTION SUMMARY*
Shifting to a diet rich in plants is a demand-side solution to global warming that runs counter to the meat-centric Western diet on the rise globally. That diet comes with a steep climate price tag: one-fifth of global emissions. If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Plant-rich diets reduce emissions and also tend to be healthier, leading to lower rates of chronic disease. According to a 2016 study, business-as-usual emissions could be reduced by as much as 70 percent through adopting a vegan diet and 63 percent for a vegetarian diet, which includes cheese, milk, and eggs. $1 trillion in annual health-care costs and lost productivity would be saved.