The World Bank has called for governments in wealthy countries to shift subsidies from high-emitting to low-emitting foods in a landmark new report, but stopped short of criticising meat or telling people what to eat.
While scientists have long recognised that vegan and vegetarian diets are far better for the climate than typical Western meat-eating ones, governments and international bodies have often shied away from explicit calls for the public to consume fewer animal products.
Experts told Climate Home that diets are an emotive issue. Western politicians and lobbyists opposed to climate action have spread disinformation about green policies that affect food, falsely claiming that governments will limit hamburgers, tax T-bones or make citizens eat low-carbon forms of protein like insects.
Shift subsidies
The bank’s new “Recipe for a Livable Planet” report outlines a “menu of solutions” governments can take to reduce their planet-warming emissions from food production, including using more renewable energy, harvesting food from trees instead of cutting them down, and restoring forests.
It calls on high-income countries, whose diets are most polluting for the planet, to take the lead by providing finance for green measures to low and middle-income nations and by shifting subsidies away from high-emitting food sources like cattle for beef. This “would reveal their full price and help make low-emission food options cheaper in comparison”, the report says.
UN agrees carbon market safeguards to tackle green land grabs
Report author William Sutton, the bank’s lead on climate-smart agriculture, told Climate Home an example of a subsidy that is “not necessarily helpful for the environment” is providing free or cheap land for grazing livestock. While Sutton declined to single out countries, the US government, for example, allows cows to graze on public land for a knock-down price.
If subsidies for meat were reduced in line with its “true cost” to the planet, prices would be 20-60% higher, Sutton said. “Allow the price of meat to more accurately reflect its true cost and let consumers decide whether that’s what they want to consume or whether they would rather consume lower-emissions, lower-cost alternatives,” he added.
Options not prescriptions
Despite its report, the World Bank is not keen to be seen telling people what to eat or arguing for veganism. “The approach that we’ve taken is not to be prescriptive – not to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do – but to provide options on what they could do if they should so choose,” Sutton said.
The report contrasts high-emitting foods like red meat and dairy with “low-emission foods like poultry or fruits or vegetables”. While poultry meat, which is mainly chicken, is much less emissions-intensive than lamb or particularly beef, it is more polluting than plant-based proteins, as the report’s data shows.
This table from the report shows that vegan diets are the lowest emissions (Screenshot/World Bank)
Sutton said that changing to a more sustainable diet “doesn’t mean eliminating meat necessarily. It could be switching from beef or lamb to something like chicken or even pork.” But, he added, people “could also switch to soy or other types of beans… That will reduce emissions even more but we don’t think it’s useful to prescribe that.”
Greenpeace EU food campaigner Sini Eräjää agreed that promoting full vegetarianism or veganism is too “black and white”. But, she added, encouraging poultry consumption gives out the wrong message. “I know that there are different kinds of calculations between different kinds of meats,” she said, but “first and foremost we need to change to more plant-based diets”.
Paul Behrens, an environmental change professor at Leiden University, agreed, telling Climate Home that chicken farms drive zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance and pollute rivers and air, while poultry feed causes deforestation.
The World Bank still has investments in the meat and dairy sector. Last year, its International Finance Corporation arm loaned $47.3m for a company to develop a pig-rearing complex in China and invested $32.6m in a Brazilian dairy producer, despite opposition from environmentalists.
Asked about this, Sutton said the organisation had to “walk the talk” and had increased its support for adapting farming to climate change and reducing its emissions.
But, he added, the bank does support some investments in livestock “after careful consideration”, if it thinks it can improve a company’s approach by increasing efficiency, cutting emissions, and providing jobs and nutritious food to the poor.
Political hot-potato
Other international bodies have avoided criticising meat too explicitly. Former officials of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have said their employers censored them when they tried to criticise livestock. Meanwhile scientists have accused the FAO of misusing their research to underplay the role that changing diets can play in cutting climate-heating emissions.
In 2021, scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change faced pressure from Brazil and Argentina – two major beef and animal feed producers – to remove from a report a mention of plant-based diets and reduction of meat and dairy consumption as being good for the climate.
Edward Davey, an advisor to the Food and Land Use Coalition, said that national governments in particular “tend to be quite shy about talking about this issue because they fear the political repercussions of being perceived to be telling people what to eat”.
The US government has made no moves to reduce meat consumption but right-wing media outlets like Fox News have falsely claimed that “Biden’s climate requirements” will restrict Americans to “one burger per month”.
The Australian government likewise has no policies to curb meat-eating. But opposition politicians there have spread misinformation that the country signing up to a global methane pledge amounts to a “T-bone tax” and the end of the Australian barbeque.
We heard warnings about an end to the Aussie barbeque, a T-bone tax and so on if Australia joins 120 other countries in signing a pledge to reduce methane emissions.
But for rhetorical flourish – no one was ever going to outdo Barnaby Joyce.#Insiders #auspol pic.twitter.com/ZHYkbS0HJ2
— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) October 15, 2022
Greenpeace EU’s Eräjää said she had seen early drafts of European Commission documents that included warnings about red meat’s health impact before those warnings were stripped out of the final version. “Meat is a four-letter word,” she said.
David Powell has researched the issue for Climate Outreach, a group that specialises in communicating effectively on climate change. He said that “what we see as normal to eat is closely linked with our identities and is very personal”.
“For most people, climate arguments alone won’t help persuade them to change what they eat,” he said, adding it is better to talk about the health benefits of eating less meat and dairy in a positive way rather than shaming people.
High-income countries eat more servings of animal-sourced products than the global average
Both Sutton and Davey stressed that the debate over meat-eating is largely a wealthy country concern. People in higher-income regions eat three times as many servings of meat, seafood, eggs and dairy per day than their counterparts in South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Many, many people in the world – typically richer people in wealthier societies but also in unequal middle-income countries – need to eat much less meat for the purpose of their health, as well as for the climate, and many of the world’s poorer people need to eat more animal protein for their health, well-being and nutrition,” said Davey.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post World Bank tiptoes into fiery debate over meat emissions appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate Change
‘This is a fossil fuel crisis’, Greenpeace tells Senate gas tax Inquiry, citing homegrown renewables as path to energy security
CANBERRA, Tuesday 21 April 2026 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific has slammed gas corporation war profiteering and environmental damage in a scathing Senate hearing today as part of the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, urging fair taxation of gas corporations and the transition to secure, homegrown renewable energy to protect Australian households and the economy from future energy shocks.
Speaking at the hearing, Greenpeace said the US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran has laid bare the fundamental flaws of an energy system built on fossil fuel extraction, geopolitical power plays and corporate greed, and will be a defining moment for how the world thinks about energy security.
Greenpeace’s submission and full opening remarks can be found here.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“This is not an energy crisis, it’s a fossil fuel crisis. The crisis we’re all facing lays bare the dangers of fossil fuel dependence, for our energy security, our communities, and for global peace and stability.
“Gas corporations like Woodside, Santos, Shell and Chevron — the same companies whose CEOs refused to front this Inquiry — are making obscene war profits, using the illegal war on Iran to price gouge, profiteer and push for more gas we don’t need — while people and our environment pay the price.
“Australians are getting smashed by soaring bills and the impacts of climate disasters — gas corporations should be paying their fair share to help this country, instead of sending billions offshore, tax-free.
“But we’re at a turning point — while gas corporations cynically push to open up more of our oceans and land to drilling for fossil fuels, our allies like the UK are doubling down on renewables in response to the fossil fuel crisis. Our trading partners in Asia are making the same reassessment of fossil fuels.
“Which is why the hearing today is crucial: an effective and well-designed tax on the gas industry’s obscene war time profits is a chance to channel funds to people and communities, fast-track the rollout of clean, secure homegrown wind and solar energy, while holding polluters accountable.
“Our dependence on fossil fuels leave us overexposed to the whims of tyrants like Trump — it’s in Australia’s national interest to end the fossil fuel chokehold for good and usher in the era of clean energy security.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
HOW WOODSIDE’S BROWSE GAS PROPOSAL THREATENS SCOTT REEF’S GREEN TURTLES AND PYGMY BLUE WHALES
Woodside’s Browse to NWS gas project is under assessment by the WA and Federal Governments right now. This is a project that involved drilling up to 50 gas wells around Scott Reef off the coast of WA. Gas would be extracted directly underneath Scott Reef and Sandy Islet and pumped through a 900-kilometre subsea pipeline to the NWS gas processing facility.
Woodside’s Browse gas project’s impact on Scott Reef’s marine habitats?
Scott Reef is one of Australia’s most ecologically significant marine environments, where green turtles breed, pygmy blue whales feed, and an array of at-risk species, including sharks, dolphins, whale sharks, rays, sawfish and sea snakes thrive. It is home to many threatened species, including some found nowhere else on Earth or in genetically isolated groups, magnifying its importance from a conservation perspective.
This delicate reef’s ecosystem faces multiple threats if Woodside’s Proposed Project goes ahead, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, noise pollution, artificial lighting, pipe laying and fast-moving vessels. The reef also faces the risk of a gas well blowout, which could have catastrophic and irreversible consequences for the region’s reefs and marine parks.
Woodside’s woeful marine impacts management plan
To secure their approvals, Woodside had to develop a plan for how they would manage the significant risks to threatened green turtles and endangered pygmy blue whales if the project proceeds. We’ve had two independent scientists provide a technical assessment of Woodsides management plan for whales and turtles and their findings are gobsmacking.
Their assessment found that Woodsides management plans for these species misrepresents or does not assess the risks the Browse project poses to Scott Reef’s pygmy blue whales and green turtles. They’ve also surmised that if the project goes ahead the impacts contradict the Australian government’s own recovery plan for turtles and Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for Blue Whales.
The State and Federal Governments now have the opportunity to define their legacies on nature protection and save Scott Reef from Woodside’s dirty gas.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Pygmy Blue Whale Management Plan
Prepared for Greenpeace Australia Pacific by Dr Ben Fitzpatrick of Oceanwise Australia with Dr Olaf Meynecke of Griffith University.
The full technical assessment is available HERE
Scott Reef is a vital feeding, foraging and resting habitat for pygmy blue whales.
Pygmy blue whales feed, forage and rest in the Scott Reef region every year. Scott Reef is recognised as a Biologically Important Area for the pygmy blue whale and is an important stop-over on their annual migration.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
- Woodside’s management plan claims of “no credible threat of significant impacts” are not supported by scientific evidence.
- The management plan relies on outdated whale population information.
- Woodside has claimed it is unclear whether Scott Reef is a foraging habitat for pygmy blue whales, despite the presence of pygmy blue whales and significant concentrations of krill being documented in the area.
- The PBWMP ignores the impacts of industrial noise on whale-to-whale communication. This is especially concerning as mother-calf pairs migrate through the Scott Reef Biologically Important Area shortly after calves are born. Mother-calf pairs rely on continuous, uninterrupted communications to maintain their connection.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Turtle Management Plan
Prepared for Greenpeace Australia Pacific by Dr Ben Fitzpatrick of Oceanwise Australia.
The full technical assessment is available HERE
Scott Reef is a vital nesting ground for unique green turtles.
The green turtles that nest at Scott Reef’s low-lying Sandy Islet sand cay and nearby Browse Island are genetically unique and are classified as ‘Extremely Vulnerable’ in Australia’s Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could make Scott Reef’s unique green turtles extinct.
- The Browse project would operate within 20 kilometres of nesting habitat that’s critical to the survival of Scott Reef’s genetically unique and vulnerable green turtle population.
- Woodside’s Browse Turtle Management Plan (TMP) misrepresents the risks the Browse project poses to Scott Reef’s green turtles.
- Claims in Woodside’s TMP about Scott Reef’s green turtle population size, nesting success and hatchling numbers are not backed by scientific evidence.
- The TMP proposes gathering updated data after the Browse project is approved.
- Woodside’s TMP proposes adding sand sourced elsewhere to Sandy Islet to counter subsidence and erosion, but fails to properly assess the associated risks.
To save Scott Reef and protect our oceans and animals, the State and Federal Governments must reject Browse.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Pygmy Blue Whale Management Plan
To secure their approvals, Woodside had to develop a plan for how they would manage the significant risks to threatened green turtles if the project proceeds. We’ve had two independent scientists provide a technical assessment of Woodside’s management plan for whales and turtles and their findings are gobsmacking.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could make Scott Reef’s unique green turtles extinct.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
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