How much of food's climate footprint comes from animals?

Globally, a little over half of the greenhouse gas emissions from food come from animal products. A large review that pooled 570 studies covering about 38,700 farms found that meat, farmed fish, eggs and dairy produce 56-58 percent of food's emissions while supplying only 18 percent of our calories and 37 percent of our protein1. Cattle are the biggest single source: the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) puts them at about 62 percent of all livestock emissions2.

In Denmark, a government-appointed expert group on green tax reform projects that animal production will account for 52 percent of emissions from farming and forestry in 2030. Crops make up just under 29 percent, and drained carbon-rich soils most of the rest3. Farming and forestry together produced 27 percent of Denmark's total emissions in 20213.