Cattle Australia slams report hinting eating less red meat to cut emissions

Cattle Australia has slammed a suggestion made by the government's climate change agency that Australians could eat less red meat to help the nation meet net-zero targets as "utterly ridiculous" In the landmark 2024 Climate Change Authority Sector Pathways Review, the authority said greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced with a concerted switch from beef and lamb to lower-emission proteins such as pork and kangaroo. It also pointed to the increasing availability of plant-based meat options and outlined an argument for cell-cultured protein, or lab-grown meat, to eventually stake a sizeable share of the meat market while acknowledging that it is "currently expensive to produce in comparison to meat from livestock" and too energy-hungry. Meanwhile, the report said reforestation was central to increasing Australia's land-based carbon removal, with at least 5.9 million hectares of grazing and grasslands needed to be converted to plantation forestry, farm forestry and permanent ...