‘Big Livestock’ is just as damaging to the planet as the fossil fuel industry, campaigners warn, yet UK banks continue to be among the sector’s largest creditors, pouring tens of billions into carbon-intensive companies fuelling deforestation. Investment firms, banks, and pension funds have spent hundreds of billions of dollars supporting “destructive” global meat and dairy companies that are failing to take adequate action on carbon emissions and deforestation, a new report has warned.
Yet big meat and dairy companies are “as damaging” to our planet as the fossil fuel industry, the report warns, and the livestock sector is on track to use up more than half of the world’s emissions budget for 1.5C by 2030 and 80 per cent by mid-century. The five largest companies – JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America, and Fonterra – together emit more greenhouse gases than oil and gas giant ExxonMobil.
Banks in the UK, France and US provide more than half of the credit to meet and dairy giants, totalling $91.8bn in loans and $45.9bn in underwriting over the past five years, the report notes. Yet, it warns, those same 35 livestock corporations together produce more greenhouse gases than the economies of Germany, Canada, and the UK. “We have to reach peak livestock,” the report warns. “Industrial meat and dairy production are incompatible with a safe, ecologically sustainable life. There is no version of industrial animal agriculture production that is compatible with climate justice and a zero carbon future.”
Source: Business Green
Finnish site 
Global site