‘Climate Costs’ Would Make Price Of Meat Products Soar 146%, Says Report

The price of meat products would soar as high as 146 percent if the environmental damage they cause was taken into consideration, a new report states.

Climate Impacts of Food Production, which has been published in Nature Communications, says all animal products would have to become ‘far more’ expensive if the ‘consequential costs of the greenhouse gases emitted’ were to be added to current prices.

It found dairy products would have to be 91 percent more expensive than they are today, and meat products a staggering 146 percent. Even organic foods would see a sharp increase in pricing: 40 percent for organic dairy products and 71 percent for organic meat.

‘Man-made greenhouse gases’

“Agriculture is one of the main sources of man-made greenhouse gases, accounting for 24 percent of global emissions,” the paper states.

“This figure alone shows how great is the need for adjustment, but also the potential of the primary sector to achieve the climate targets of the Paris Agreement, to keep global warming at a level well below 2° C. 

“The ‘European Green Deal’, which aims to reduce the European Union’s net emissions of greenhouse gases to zero by 2050, can also only be achieved with the involvement of agriculture.”

‘Significantly more expensive’

“We ourselves were surprised by the big difference between the food groups investigated and the resulting mispricing of animal-based food products in particular,” said researcher Tobias Gaugler.

Co-author Amelie Michalke added: “If these market mispricing errors were to cease to exist or at least be reduced, this would also have a major impact on the demand for food. 

“A food that becomes significantly more expensive will also be much less in demand.”

You can read the full report here