Global: Strategic investments in five countries hold the key to tackling climate challenges in livestock production

To address the climate crisis, a paradigm shift in the global livestock sector is not an option—it is a necessity. But how and where should this transformation occur? In a new paper published today in the journal Nature Sustainability, researchers from the CGIAR's Livestock and Climate Initiative and Wageningen University found that investments in only a handful of countries—India, China, Brazil, Pakistan, and Sudan—can make a huge global impact. Globally, the authors say, changes to the livestock sector have great potential to both mitigate the climate crisis, and help people adapt. Livestock production contributes to climate change, and is vulnerable to it at the same time. Ruminant animals' burps and manure release the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, and there are other carbon emissions associated with animal farming as well. Livestock production directly accounts for 5.8% of global annual ...