Since 2021, the potential for using legal tools to address the climate harms of industrial animal agriculture has been a major focus of the Law, Environment & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School. Working with students in clinical and practical courses, LEAP’s Climate Change & Animal Agriculture Legal Initiative (CCAALI) focuses on the intersection of climate change and the food system, exploring the potential for legal approaches to hold animal agriculture companies accountable for their climate pollution.
Even if emissions from electricity production and transportation ended immediately, global emissions related to food production alone could preclude limiting warming to 1.5 or 2.0 degrees Celsius or less above pre-industrial levels, goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The vast majority of U.S. agriculture emissions are related to the production of farmed animals and their feed.
The industry’s emissions are particularly concerning because farmed animals and their manure are the United States’ top anthropogenic source of methane, a climate super-pollutant. Moreover, according to a U.N. estimate, raising animals for food (including growing their feed) is responsible for more than half of all nitrous oxide emissions, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. Yet, agribusinesses have received little public, legal, or political scrutiny for their climate pollution, and the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions remain effectively unregulated in the United States.
Given the urgency of the climate crisis and the current lack of political will to address greenhouse gas pollution from the animal agriculture industry, climate advocates are turning to litigation. CCAALI seeks to understand the nature, trajectory, and potential impacts of such litigation strategies.
CCAALI is also exploring emerging policy approaches for addressing the climate harms of animal agriculture. While litigation is already showing itself to be a powerful tool, policy changes will ultimately be necessary to support a transition to a just, healthy, humane, and sustainable food system in line with climate science and planetary boundaries.