Factory farming in HICs causes environmental disasters in LMICs

• Food stability for people in LMICs and animal agriculture
• Environmental damage caused by factory farms
• Animal agro and soil health
• Market shocks due to livestock farming

Factory farming in high income countries may be indirectly reducing Food stability in LMICs by contributing to climate change-driven disasters.

The report estimates that in 2021, factory farms contributed approximately 11% of global GHG emissions, with emissions from factory farms in the Global North accounting for about 4.3% of global GHGs.

A 2023 report by World Animal Protection details the economic costs of 13 climate-induced weather disasters between 2018 – 2022 in LMICs. This includes three of the most costly weather related disasters in 2022, attributed to climate change are;

• The Pakistan floods with economic costs of at least $15B
• The prolonged drought experienced by Kenya, which has resulted in economic losses of at least $1.5B
• The India and Pakistan heatwave with economic losses of at least $157B.
  They argue that because factory farms in the global north contribute ~4.3 of GHGs they can be implicated in 4.3% of the costs of these disasters. A bit tenuous but an interesting idea.

By 2050, the economic costs of loss and damage associated with weather disasters globally could exceed $1tn every year, as the impacts of climate change intensify. Given that factory farming contributes 11% of total GHG emissions, the industry associated with them would be liable for over $100 billion of these estimated costs.

For example, wildfires across the Amazon rainforest caused $957 Billion of damage across Brazil, Bolivia and Peru over the last 30 years (over 906 thousand hectares lost). $765B of can be attributable to human induced climate change, and given that factory farming in the Global North contributes 4.3% of global GHG emissions, the report argues that this makes it liable for nearly $33 Billion in indrect damages.

Likewise, The devastating heatwave across India and Pakistan in 2022 saw the highest temperatures since records began 122 years ago. The report estimates that factory farming in the global north to be indirectly responsible for $6.71 Billion of damages in lost labour and crop failures from drought.

Event attribution is the scientific discipline of figuring out how much of the effects of a natural disaster can be attributed to climate change.