Climate changemitigation policies tend to focus on the energy sector, while

    the livestock sector receives surprisingly little attention, despite the fact that it accounts

    for 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions and for 80% of total anthropogenic

    land use. From a dietary perspective, new insights in the adverse health effects of

    beef and pork have lead to a revision of meat consumption recommendations. Here,

    we explored the potential impact of dietary changes on achieving ambitious climate

    stabilization levels.

    By using an integrated assessment model, we found a global food

    transition to less meat, or even a complete switch to plant-based protein food to have

    a dramatic effect on land use. Up to 2,700 Mha of pasture and 100 Mha of cropland

    could be abandoned, resulting in a large carbon uptake from regrowing vegetation.

    Additionally, methane and nitrous oxide emission would be reduced substantially.

    A global transition to a lowmeat-diet as recommended for health reasons would reduce

    the mitigation costs to achieve a 450 ppm CO2-eq. stabilisation target by about 50%

    in 2050 compared to the reference case. Dietary changes could therefore not only

    create substantial benefits for human health and global land use, but can also play an

    important role in future climate change mitigation policies.

    減緩氣候變化的政策往往把注意力集中在能源部門，盡管畜牧業占溫室氣體排放的18%,占人為土地使用總數的80%,卻極為不予重視。從飲食的角度來看，牛肉和豬肉對健康有害的新見解已使肉類消費的推薦量得以修改。這里，我們探討飲食改變對實現穩定氣候變化這一艱巨計劃的潛在影響。

    通過使用綜合評估模型，我們發現全球飲食轉為少吃肉，甚至徹底改為植物性蛋白的食物對土地利用有巨大的影響。多達270億公頃的牧場和10億公頃的耕地會成為閑地，使植被重生以吸收大量的碳。此外，甲烷和一氧化二氮排放量將大幅減少。

    如為健康之故全世界轉向低肉飲食，與參照例子相比，將降低約50%的減排成本以實現2050年450ppm二氧化碳當量的溫室氣體穩定目標。因此飲食的改變，不僅可為人類健康和全球土地使用帶來顯著的好處，也能在未來減緩氣候變化政策中發揮重要作用。