Category: research

Posted on

The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers

Our view of responsibility for climate change has expanded to include the actions of firms, particularly fossil fuel producers. Yet analysis of animal agriculture’s role in climate change— estimated as 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions—has mainly focused on the sector as a whole. Here we examine the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies for their commitments to mitigating climate change and find four companies that have made an explicit commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. In general, these commitments emphasized mitigating energy use, with minimal focus on emissions (e.g., methane) from animal and land use, which make the biggest warming contributions in the agricultural sector. We also compare the companies’ projected global emissions under a business-as-usual scenario to their head- quarter countries’ future emissions, assuming each country’s compliance with their commit- ments to the Paris Climate Agreement. Taking this view of responsibility and emissions accounting (which is not the conception of responsibility in the Paris Agreement), our results show that including industrial meat and dairy producers’ full global emissions in national accounting would impact national targets for greenhouse gas reductions. As examples, by our calculations, two companies—Fonterra in New Zealand, and Nestlé in Switzerland— would make up more than 100% of their headquarter country’s total emissions target in the coming decade. Finally, we evaluated using 20 yes-or-no questions and a variety of sources the transparency of emissions reporting, mitigation commitments, and influence on public opinion and politics of the 10 US meat and dairy companies. According to the evidence we collected, all 10 US companies have contributed to efforts to undermine climate-related policies. Each of these analyses approaches responsibility in new and different ways. Under the swiftly changing social conditions provoked by climate change, we can expect new imaginings of responsibility for GHG emissions, as well as increased attention to the role of corporate actors and their accountability for climate change impacts.

Read the full paper here: Lazarus, O., S. McDermid, J. Jacquet* (2021). The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers. Climatic Change 165: 30 (*corresponding author).

Posted on

Who is the high seas fishing industry?

Seafood companies rarely disclose what or where they are fishing. To provide a first overview of the fishing industry in the high seas—the area beyond national jurisdiction—we linked fishing activity in the high seas to vessel owners and corporate actors. We identified 1,120 corporate actors for 2,482 vessels (∼2/3 of high seas fishing vessels and effort in 2018) and found that the top 100 corporate actors account for 36% of all high seas fishing effort. As attribution for anthropogenic activities expands beyond a national framework, we demonstrate the feasibility of methods to identify the high seas fishing industry. These results provide a unique lens through which to view accountability for the use and protection of marine biodiversity. Read the entire article.
 
Posted on

The past and future for fish and fishing with Becca Franks

Fish aficionado Becca Franks and I have been collaborating for several years. In November, 2019, we gave a lecture in the Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale University titled Fish, Fisheries, and Ending Factory Fishing and Farming. With that lecture fresh in our mind, we did an interview in early 2020 with artist and filmmaker Christopher Roth for Germany’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The premise was it is 2038 and all the world’s problems have been solved. Download (the first two pages) of our paper The state and status of fishes and aquatic invertebrates: A retrospective, also published in 2038. We are not only thinking about (and writing from) the future — we also recently published a piece with Troy Vettese on the history of the fish pain debate in Issues in Science and Technology.

Posted on

High seas fisheries play a negligible role in addressing global food security

Authors: Laurenne Schiller, Megan Bailey, Jennifer Jacquet, and Enric Sala

Abstract
Recent international negotiations have highlighted the need to protect marine diversity on the high seas—the ocean area beyond national jurisdiction. However, restricting fishing access on the high seas raises many concerns, including how such restrictions would affect food security. We analyze high seas catches and trade data to determine the contribution of the high seas catch to global seafood production, the main species caught on the high seas, and the primary markets where these species are sold. By volume, the total catch from the high seas accounts for 4.2% of annual marine capture fisheries production and 2.4% of total seafood production, including freshwater fisheries and aquaculture. Thirty-nine fish and invertebrate species account for 99.5% of the high seas targeted catch, but only one species, Antarctic toothfish, is caught exclusively on the high seas. The remaining catch, which is caught both on the high seas and in national jurisdictions, is made up primarily of tunas, billfishes, small pelagic fishes, pelagic squids, toothfish, and krill. Most high seas species are destined for upscale food and supplement markets in developed, food-secure countries, such as Japan, the European Union, and the United States, suggesting that, in aggregate, high seas fisheries play a negligible role in ensuring global food security.

Read more here.

Posted on

Watch over Antarctic waters

Commentary led by Cassandra Brooks, and also David Ainley, Peter Abrams, Paul Dayton, Robert Hofman, and Donald Siniff at Nature.

In a rapidly changing climate, fisheries in the Southern Ocean must be managed cautiously…

Read it here.

Posted on

Defining denial and sentient seafood — a response to Sneddon et al.

Hooked Follow Up III: Gone Monster Fishing NGCUS - Ep Code: 3867Sneddon et al. address the scientists who reject the empirical evidence on fish sentience, calling them “sceptics” and their work “denial”. This is the first article to frame the question of fish sentience in these terms, and it provides an obvious opening for social science and humanities research in the science of fish sentience. It is also worth asking what practical changes in the lives of fish might arise from the mounting evidence of their sentience. I suggest that the relationship between sentience and our sense of moral obligation is not as clear as we often assume. Read the full response here.
Continue reading “Defining denial and sentient seafood — a response to Sneddon et al.”

Posted on

What can conservationists learn from investor behavior?

How do we encourage personal savings and investment? Answers to this question, revealed through new analyses in experimental economics, provide insight into how to encourage collective savings and investment in our future through ecological conservation. There are three lessons to be learned.

Jacquet, J. (2009) What can conservationists learn from investor behavior? Conservation Biology 23(3): 518-519.