{"id":1077,"date":"2024-01-15T08:33:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T08:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1077"},"modified":"2024-01-15T09:59:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T09:59:53","slug":"food_detail_4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1077","title":{"rendered":"FOOD_DETAIL_4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">FOOD<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\"><strong>OCTOBER 24, 2023<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">UN Farming Unit Stifled Methane Emissions Research<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThere was a lot of censorship,\u201d says one ex-official, and \u201ceditorial vandalism.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ARTHUR NESLEN<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"321\" height=\"180\" src=\"http:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/10-23-2023-cows.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-631\" style=\"width:760px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/10-23-2023-cows.webp 321w, https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/10-23-2023-cows-300x168.webp 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 321px) 100vw, 321px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Dominika Zarzycka\/Zuma<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Former officials<\/strong>\u00a0in the UN\u2019s farming wing have said they were censored, sabotaged, undermined and victimized for more than a decade after they wrote about the\u00a0hugely damaging\u00a0contribution of methane emissions from livestock to global heating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Team members at the UN\u00a0Food\u00a0and Agriculture Organization tasked with estimating cattle\u2019s contribution to soaring temperatures said that pressure from farm-friendly funding states was felt throughout the FAO\u2019s Rome headquarters and coincided with attempts by FAO leadership to muzzle their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The allegations date back to the years after 2006, when some of the officials who spoke exclusively to the\u00a0<em>Guardian<\/em>\u00a0on condition of anonymity wrote\u00a0\u201cLivestock\u2019s Long Shadow,\u201d a landmark report that pushed farm emissions on to the climate agenda for the first time. LLS included the first tally of the meat and dairy sector\u2019s ecological cost, attributing 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions to livestock, mostly cattle. It shocked an industry that had long seen the FAO as a reliable ally\u2014and spurred an internal clampdown by FAO hierarchy, according to the officials.\u201cThere\u2019s been an alarming lack of validation over the now decades that this research has been produced.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe lobbyists obviously managed to influence things,\u201d one ex-official said. \u201cThey had a strong impact on the way things were done at the FAO and there was a lot of censorship. It was always an uphill struggle getting the documents you produced past the office for corporate communications and one had to fend off a good deal of editorial vandalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Serving and former FAO experts said that between 2006 and 2019, management made numerous attempts to suppress investigations into the cow\/climate change connection. Top officials rewrote and diluted key passages in another report on the same topic, \u201cburied\u201d another paper critical of big agriculture, excluded critical officials from meetings and summits, and briefed against their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere was substantial pressure internally and there were consequences for permanent staff who worked on this, in terms of their careers. It wasn\u2019t really a healthy environment to work in,\u201d said another ex-official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientists also expressed concern about the way the FAO\u2019s estimate of livestock\u2019s overall contribution to emissions is continuing to fall. The 18 percent number that was published in 2006 was revised downwards to 14.5 percent in a follow-up paper,\u00a0Tackling Climate Change Emissions\u00a0in 2013. It is currently being assessed at\u00a0about 11.2 percent\u00a0based on a new \u201cGleam 3.0\u201d model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But many scientists plot farm emissions on a very different trajectory. One\u00a0recent study\u00a0concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from animal products made up 20 percent of the global total and a 2021\u00a0study found\u00a0that the figure should be between 16.5 percent and 28.1 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A recent\u00a0paper\u00a0by Matthew Hayek, the assistant professor in environmental sciences at New York University, said that the FAO\u2019s use of modeling\u2014rather than verifiable monitoring data\u2014could underestimate methane emissions from livestock by up to 90 percent in countries such as the US. \u201cModels are only estimates that need to be constantly validated\u2014and there\u2019s been an alarming lack of validation over the now decades that this research has been produced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anne Mottet, the FAO\u2019s livestock development officer, stressed that the changing figures reflected best practices and evolving methodologies, rather than an assumed cut in livestock numbers. \u201cLivestock is part of the FAO\u2019s strategy on climate change and we work with governments and farmers and industry on this program as well,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can\u2019t ignore the main actors of the sector but there has been no particular pressure from them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new report\u2019s methodology had produced more accurate figures because \u201cwe have access to better data and tools and the IPCC calculations for emissions are also being improved and updated regularly,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<em>Guardian<\/em>&nbsp;conducted in-depth interviews with about 20 former and current FAO officials, and corroborated their accounts as far as possible. Speaking anonymously, the officials described a culture in which attempts to probe the connection between livestock and climate change were discouraged and, in some cases, suppressed, and where management attempted to sabotage research and research networks. Henning Steinfeld, the head of the FAO\u2019s livestock analysis unit, said that diplomats and meat lobbyists talked to senior FAO managers and encouraged them not to invest in work that dealt with environmental impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not that anyone would come to you and say: \u2018Stop this! We don\u2019t like this work,\u2019\u201d the source said, describing the working environment. \u201cThey would just make your work difficult. They would not invite you to a meeting with a donor. You would not get a slot when you should be speaking. You would not get the support from project development, from capacity building, from all kinds of other units in the FAO that others would get.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jennifer Jacquet, professor of environmental science at the University of Miami, suggested it was \u201cno coincidence\u201d that the FAO had rowed back on its appraisal of farm emissions, given the pressures recounted by former officials. \u201cIt\u2019s a story as old as time, that the meat and dairy industry has enormous influence over the policymaking apparatus,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FAO data was a \u201cprime source\u201d of data for the UN International Panel on Climate Change\u2019s last report on forestry and agriculture, according to its lead author, Gert Jan Nabuurs. The organization\u2019s current focus is on making sure that scientific innovation is made as available as possible for farmers around the world. In September it hosted the first\u00a0global conference\u00a0on sustainable livestock transformation, which looked at animal feed, precision farming and animal genetic resources, with the goal of \u201csharing information about good practices and initiatives to make optimal use of natural resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has also, for the first time, set itself the aim of trying to outline how food systems must change for the world to stay within the globally agreed goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FAO and several meat and dairy industry lobbyists declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UN Farming Unit Stifled Methane Emissions Research Former officials\u00a0in the UN\u2019s farming wing have said they were censored, sabotaged, undermined and victimized for more than a decade after they wrote about the\u00a0hugely damaging\u00a0contribution of methane emissions from livestock to global heating. Team members at the UN\u00a0Food\u00a0and Agriculture Organization tasked with estimating cattle\u2019s contribution to soaring&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1077\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">FOOD_DETAIL_4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":370,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"on","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1111,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1077\/revisions\/1111"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}