Latin American cattle block road to Paris goals

Dense forest and patchy regulations mean Latin America is struggling to shake off its mantle as the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gas from livestock production."When extensive deforestation occurs … it drastically modifies the rural and urban environment through hydrologic imbalance, loss of fertile soil, climate cycle alterations, and biodiversity loss," explains Paraguayan environmental engineer Guillermo Achucarro—a former member of the climate NGO BASE in his country.He believes that the goal of achieving net zero emissions from Latin American livestock by 2050—agreed during the 2015 UN climate talks in Paris—"is something quite complicated, if not impossible."Globally, Latin America has the highest emissions from livestock—a crucial activity for this region—with 1,889 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year, the measurement used to calculate carbon footprint.The next largest emitters are East and Southeast Asia with 1,576 million tons, and Southern Asia ...