What If I became vegan?

The mitigation potential associated with a diet change involving a reduction in the amount of animal products consumed varies between 2.1 and 0.4 tCO2eq/cap (mean of 0.9 tCO2eq/cap) for a Vegan diet, between 1.5 and 0.01 for a Vegetarian diet, and between 2.0 and -0.1 for Mediterranean similar diet – e.g. Atlantic and New Nordic. The three types of diets have median mitigation potential of 0.9, 0.5 and 0.4 tCO2eq/cap, respectively. Adopting more Sustainable diet or a Shift to lower carbon meats is also associated with sizable reductions, with an average annual reduction of 0.5 tCO2eq/cap. The carbon intensity per calorie/kg of primary product is substantially lower for vegetal foods compared to ruminants, non-ruminants and dairy, with meat producing more emissions per unit of energy due to energy losses at each trophic level88. Emissions associated with land use change (LUC) are also most significant for meat-intensive diets89, due to increases in pasture land and arable land for growing revealed as less attractive if not detrimental option for climate change mitigation Food.