2025 Year in Review

Claim 1a: “Animal agriculture contributes approximately a fifth of global climate-warming emissions…”

• Sutton, William R., Alexander Lotsch, and Ashesh Prassan. 2024. Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/4bfac90e-37f0-4f45-b608-a6da9a75f0ae
• Crippa, M., E. Solazzo, D. Guizzardi, F. Monforti-Ferrario, F. N. Tubiello, and A. Leip. 2021. “Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions.” Nature Food 2 (3): 198–209. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9
• Xu, Xiaoming, Prateek Sharma, Shijie Shu, et al. 2021. “Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Animal-Based Foods Are Twice Those of Plant-Based Foods.” Nature Food. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00358-x
• Food and Agriculture Organization. 2022. “Livestock Emission Data at a Glance.” https://foodandagricultureorganization.shinyapps.io/GLEAMV3_Public/

Claim 1b: “…and is a top source of nitrous oxide and methane.”

• FAO. 2023. Pathways Towards Lower Emissions — A global assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation options from livestock agrifood systems. Rome: FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc9029en https://openknowledge.fao.org/items/b3f21d6d-bd6d-4e66-b8ca-63ce376560b5 

Claim 2: “Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, we wouldn’t hit climate goals without a decrease in conventional meat production.”

• Clark, Michael A., Nina G. G. Domingo, Kimberly Colgan, Sumil K. Thakrar, David Tilman, John Lynch, Inês L. Azevedo, and Jason D. Hill. 2020. “Global Food System Emissions Could Preclude Achieving the 1.5° and 2°C Climate Change Targets.” Science 370 (6517): 705–708. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba7357 

Claim 3: “At just 11 percent market share, alternative proteins would deliver climate benefits equivalent to grounding nearly every plane on the planet.”

• Morach, Benjamin. 2022. “The Untapped Climate Opportunity in Alternative Proteins.” Boston Consulting Group. July 4, 2022. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2022/combating-climate-crisis-with-alternative-protein (Rows 30, 47)

Claim 4: “Animal agriculture is a leading cause of global deforestation, accelerating both biodiversity loss and climate change.”

• Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. 2024. “Half of the World’s Habitable Land Is Used for Agriculture.” Our World in Data. February 16, 2024. https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture  (Row 31)
• Pendrill, Florence, Toby A. Gardner, Patrick Meyfroidt, U. Martin Persson, et al. 2022. “Disentangling the Numbers Behind Agriculture-Driven Tropical Deforestation.” Science 377 (6611): eabm9267. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm9267 

Claim 5: “It’s also a leading user of fresh water and a major cause of water pollution worldwide.”

• FAO. 2019. “Water Use in Livestock Production Systems and Supply Chains.” FAO Knowledge Repository. https://openknowledge.fao.org/items/683c0258-3ff2-4dda-9143-61bae3bb251f (Row 35 — “20 percent”; flagged under review)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2017. “Water for Sustainable Food and Agriculture: A Report Produced for the G20 Presidency of Germany.” Rome: FAO. https://www.developmentaid.org/api/frontend/cms/file/2023/02/i7959e.pdf (Row 43 — “16 percent”)

• Nikhita, Mansukhani Kogar, et al. 2024. “Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Plant- and Animal-Based Meats.” Washington, D.C.: Good Food Institute. https://gfi.org/resource/plant-based-meat-life-cycle-assessment/ (Row 48 — “93% less water pollution” for plant-based vs. animal-based)
• Mekonnen, Mesfin M., and Arjen Y. Hoekstra. 2012. “A Global Assessment of the Water Footprint of Farm Animal Products.” Ecosystems 15 (3): 401–415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-011-9517-8 

Claim 6: “A global shift to plant-based diets could cut the land needed for food by up to 75 percent, giving forests, grasslands, rivers, and coasts vast areas in which to recover.”

• Poore, Joseph, and Thomas Nemecek. 2018. “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts through Producers and Consumers.” Science 360 (6392): 987–92. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216 (Row 38)

Claim 7: “Destructive fishing practices drive climate change and habitat loss, creating harmful cascades through ocean ecosystems.”

• Hiddink, Jan G., Simon Jennings, Marija Sciberras, Claire L. Szostek, Kathryn M. Hughes, Nick Ellis, Adriaan D. Rijnsdorp, Robert A. McConnaughey, Tessa Mazor, Ray Hilborn, Jeremy S. Collie, C. Roland Pitcher, Ricardo O. Amoroso, Ana M. Parma, Petri Suuronen, and Michel J. Kaiser. 2017. “Global Analysis of Depletion and Recovery of Seabed Biota after Bottom Trawling Disturbance.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114 (31): 8301–8306. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618858114 
• Pusceddu, Antonio, Silvia Bianchelli, Jacobo Martín, Puig Pere, Miquel Canals, Serge Heussner, and Roberto Danovaro. 2014. “Chronic and Intensive Bottom Trawling Impairs Deep-Sea Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (24): 8861–8866. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1405454111

Claim 8: “Human impacts are increasing across two-thirds of the ocean, and 35 percent of fish stocks are now overexploited.”

• Halpern, Benjamin S., Melanie Frazier, John Potapenko, et al. 2015. “Spatial and Temporal Changes in Cumulative Human Impacts on the World’s Ocean.” Nature Communications 6: 7615. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8615
• FAO. 2024. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2024 — Blue Transformation in Action. Rome: FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd0683en 

Claim 9: “Plant-based and cultivated seafood can help close the gap between supply and demand with far less environmental harm.”

• Gephart, Jessica A., Patrik J. G. Henriksson, Robert W. R. Parker, et al. 2021. “Environmental Performance of Blue Foods.” Nature 597: 360–365. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03889-2 
• GFI. 2023. “Sustainable Seafood: Plant-Based and Cultivated Seafood.” The Good Food Institute. https://gfi.org/seafood/ 

Claim 10: “Even chickens—the most efficient livestock—convert only one in nine calories of feed into meat.”

• Searchinger, Tim. 2019. World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future. World Resources Institute. https://research.wri.org/wrr-food (Rows 4, 17)

Claim 11a: “One-third of all staple crops are fed to farmed animals…”

• Cassidy, Emily S., Paul C. West, James S. Gerber, and Jonathan A. Foley. 2013. “Redefining Agricultural Yields: From Tonnes to People Nourished per Hectare.” Environmental Research Letters 8 (3): 034015. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015 (Row 6)
• Ritchie, Hannah, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser. 2024. “Environmental Impacts of Food Production.” Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food 

Claim 11b: “…while one in twelve people is undernourished.”

• The source bank (Row 7) says “one in nine” (from the 2018 FAO SOFI report):
  • FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO. 2018. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018. Rome: FAO. https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/f5019ab4-0f6a-47e8-85b9-15473c012d6a/content (Row 7 — flagged “Under review”)
• The most recent data:
  • SOFI 2024: 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven globally.
  • SOFI 2025: 673 million people faced hunger in 2024, equivalent to approximately one in twelve (8.3%).
• FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO. 2025. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025. Rome: FAO. https://openknowledge.fao.org/items/ea9cebff-306c-49b7-8865-2aef3bfd25e2 

Claim 12: “Crowded conditions allow viruses to mutate, raising pandemic risk.”

• UNEP and ILRI. 2020. Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic Diseases and How to Break the Chain of Transmission. Nairobi: UNEP. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/preventing-future-zoonotic-disease-outbreaks-protecting-environment-animals-and (Rows 15, 16)

Claim 13: “Routine antibiotic use fuels superbugs that already kill over a million people annually.”

• Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators. 2022. “Global Burden of Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance in 2019: A Systematic Analysis.” The Lancet 399 (10325): 629–655. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02724-0 
• A 2024 update from the same group (GRAM Project) confirmed over 1 million attributable deaths annually from 1990–2021 and projected 1.91 million by 2050:
  • Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators. 2024. “Global Burden of Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance 1990–2021: A Systematic Analysis with Forecasts to 2050.” The Lancet 404 (10459): 1199–1226. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01867-1 

Claim 14: “Alternative proteins address both: they eliminate the need for antibiotics in meat production and help prevent future pandemics.”

• UNEP and ILRI. 2020. Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic Diseases and How to Break the Chain of Transmission. Nairobi: UNEP. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/preventing-future-zoonotic-disease-outbreaks-protecting-environment-animals-and (Row 15)
• UNEP. 2023. What’s Cooking? An Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Selected Novel Alternatives to Conventional Animal Products. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme. https://doi.org/10.59117/20.500.11822/44236 (Rows 19, 22)

Claim 15: “Almost 100 billion land animals are slaughtered annually for food.”

• FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Production — Livestock Primary. Rome: FAO. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL 

Claim 16: “Including aquatic animals, the number climbs into the trillions.”

• Mood, Alison, Elena Lara, Natasha K. Boyland, and Phil Brooke. 2023. “Estimating Global Numbers of Farmed Fishes Killed for Food Annually from 1990 to 2019.” Animal Welfare 32: e12. https://doi.org/10.1017/awf.2023.4 
• fishcount.org.uk. “Fish Count Estimates.” http://fishcount.org.uk/fish-count-estimates-2 

Claim 17: “With global meat demand projected to rise, a 10% market share for alternative proteins translates to approximately 10–14 billion terrestrial animals spared from industrial agriculture every year.”

• “GFI analysis based on FAO 2023 livestock slaughter data and projected demand growth.” Underlying sources:
  • FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Production — Livestock Primary. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL
  • FAO. 2018. The Future of Food and Agriculture — Alternative Pathways to 2050. Rome: FAO. https://www.fao.org/global-perspectives-studies/resources/detail/en/c/1157074/