Climate Change Minister James Shaw wants you to eat less meat
James Shaw - fan of vegetables. Credits: The AM Show Climate Change Minister James Shaw wants you to stop eating so much meat. But he has no plans to make it compulsory, though a recent study found going vegan is the best thing a person can do for the environment. "Ninety-five percent of new Zealanders consume meat, and it is fairly obvious there is a lot of water, a lot of energy and a lot of land use that goes into protein production that way," the Green Party co-leader told TVNZ's Q+A . "If somebody wanted to have an immediate impact, they could eat one less meat meal per week. We're not encouraging that as a Government. What we're trying to do is to ensure that there's settings right across the economy that make sure people are supported, that they're really clear about the direction of travel, that there are sufficient incentives to support that transition, right? "And then essentially what consumers do is really up to them." Mr Shaw says encouraging Kiwis to say no to beef and lamb won't harm our agriculture-led economy. "New Zealand has enough land to feed about 40 million people with current production methodologies. We know that the middle classes in China and India and in parts of Europe and so on, there is a huge demand for our food products." The study, conducted at the University of Oxford, found while meat only supplies 18 percent of the world's calories, it takes up 83 percent of farmland and produces more than half the agricultural sector's emissions. The most efficiently produced beef takes 36 times more land to produce than peas, according to the research, and created six times the emissions. "I have stopped consuming animal products over the last four years of this project," lead researcher Joseph Poore told The Guardian . "These impacts are not necessary to sustain our current way of life. The question is how much can we reduce them, and the answer is a lot." Newshub.