Edinburgh Napier University

  Increasingly, research indicates that the agricultural sector contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), particularly with regards to livestock. As a result, the IPCC has recognised the importance of pursuing a sustainable global diet (often defined as one with lower consumption of livestock products) in meeting the Paris Agreement’s 2⁰C mitigation target. This paper seeks to identify to what extent the international climate regime has created policy space for the reduction of livestock emissions and the achievement of a sustainable global diet. The focus of the paper lies on some of the main policy documents in the international climate regime, namely the Paris Agreement 2015, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement, initiatives under the Non-State Actor Zone on Climate Action (NAZCA) and the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA).

Through a critical frame analysis, the paper finds that issues relating to agricultural emissions and the livestock sector are framed more strongly in food security and adaptation terms than in solely mitigation terms. As a result, reducing livestock consumption (especially in high income and high consuming countries) is not presented as an emissions solution under the regime. Nonetheless, the paper finds that the work of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) offers the potential to fill this gap of solutions coverage and introduce the idea of sustainable diet more fully into the international climate regime.