Oops

Livestock less damaging than UN report claimed - Business - The Nelson Mail

A blunder has seen New Zealand blamed for climate change caused by other countries, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation has acknowledged.

The FAO report, Livestock's Long Shadow, made public last year to world acclaim, states that livestock contributes 18 per cent of the global warming effect, even more than transport.

But buried in the report is the information that deforestation - mainly in the Amazonian rainforest - is included in that figure. Without it, livestock's contribution falls to less than 12 per cent.

This has been ignored in public statements made since the report's release. The most controversial was by the chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, who urged people to eat less meat.

(Via Marc Morano)