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.

减缓气候变化的政策往往把注意力集中在能源部门，尽管畜牧业占温室气体排放的18%,占人为土地使用总数的80%,却极为不予重视。从饮食的角度来看，牛肉和猪肉对健康有害的新见解已使肉类消费的推荐量得以修改。这里，我们探讨饮食改变对实现稳定气候变化这一艰巨计划的潜在影响。

通过使用综合评估模型，我们发现全球饮食转为少吃肉，甚至彻底改为植物性蛋白的食物对土地利用有巨大的影响。多达270亿公顷的牧场和10亿公顷的耕地会成为闲地，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将大幅减少。

如为健康之故全世界转向低肉饮食，与参照例子相比，将降低约50%的减排成本以实现2050年450ppm二氧化碳当量的温室气体稳定目标。因此饮食的改变，不仅可为人类健康和全球土地使用带来显着的好处，也能在未来减缓气候变化政策中发挥重要作用。