19.03.01 - Climate impact of lab-grown meat

The agriculture sector is responsible for about 25% of global warming according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so rearing livestock for meat is a significant problem. When ruminant animals such as cows and sheep digest food they burp large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change. And growing the crops they are fed adds even more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It is now possible to cultivate edible meat in a lab, rather than rearing livestock. And because of this, the new technique is often promoted as more environmentally friendly than having herds of cattle. But a new study from the University of Oxford has looked closely at the data, and the situation is not as simple as first though. Jack Tavener spoke to John Lynch who co-authored the study about the impact of meat's potentially promising alternative...