Greenhouse gas emissions in US beef production can be reduced by up to 30% with the adoption of selected mitigation measures

Summary: Some research indicating that significant GHG emission reductions in beef production can be achieved in the future as long as the entire supply chain adopts these mitigation measures.

Here's a news article talking about the research.

We find that the US beef industry currently emits 257.5 Mt CO2e yr−1 in total (Fig. 2), with 15% attributed to feed production, 64% to grazing, 19% to confinement and 3% to processing. Across all processing facilities, fed-beef generates an average of 32.6 kgCO2e kg−1 boneless beef, culled beef generates approximately 30.0 kgCO2e kg−1 boneless beef and culled dairy cows generate 14.5 kgCO2e kg−1 boneless beef owing to much of the impacts allocated to dairy products.

Across the US beef industry, we find that 30% of the baseline GHG emissions could be mitigated through full implementation of alternative practices (summarized in Tables 1 and 3) in the feed production (8%), grazing (19%), confinement (3%) and processing (1%) stages, equivalent to 20 Mt CO2e reduced and 58 Mt CO2 sequestered each year relative to the baseline (Fig. 2).

Within each stage of the beef supply chain, we find that stacking mitigation opportunities in feed production could reduce feed emissions by 54% (20.6 Mt CO2e), which may have co-benefits for reducing emissions for other feed sourcing industries. Implementing a feed additive in the feedlot could reduce feedlot emissions by 12% (4.7 Mt CO2e), as enteric fermentation represents about half of the stage’s emissions (Fig. 4). Furthermore, a combination of interventions in dairy production, such as manure management, potentially reduces in-stage emissions by 42% (3.5 Mt CO2e) and the emissions associated with the processing stage could be reduced by 26% (1.8 Mt CO2e) through energy management strategies (Fig. 4). Notably, the use of silvopasture applied across all eligible land in the grazing stage reduces total cradle-to-gate emissions (from feed production through beef processing) by 13% through carbon sequestration in additional tree biomass (20% within the grazing stage alone), representing the largest single opportunity for mitigating emissions in the beef supply chain in the short to medium term .... By contrast, applying nutrient management strategies and cover crops to all applicable feed production lands (that is, the practices with the greatest mitigation potential in the stage; Fig. 4) results in just 4% emission reduction from the overall total baseline (and 27% reduction within the feed stage alone).

Opinion: The paper is academic in the way that papers are. I thought it was interesting that the paper states beef producers/suppliers "are increasingly committed to further reducing GHG emissions." They definitely aren't cozy with the idea of eliminating beef from the supply chain, but I'm sure they would be happy with emissions reductions ... as long as it doesn't affect profits, as usual. I would not really call this "commitment," but it's about as good as we will get from industry.

A 30% reduction is great, and we should strive to achieve it, but it still doesn't solve the problem. Agricultural GHG emissions are about 10% of US emissions. The EPA has some charts referenced in that link breaking down agricultural emissions more granularly. All of these possible emissions reductions are great, but in absolute terms, beef production would still remain a huge source of GHG emissions.

If I were a politician I would almost certainly mandate the use of these mitigation measures, but where to go from there comes back to the fundamental problem: as far as energy loss goes, meat is an inefficient way to acquire nutrients.