NYC Mayor Adams vows to take a bite out of meat consumption with new carbon reduction plan

Mayor Adams promised to take a bite out of New York City’s greenhouse footprint Monday by reducing carbon output when it comes to emissions caused by the production and consumption of food — especially meat.

New data released by the city shows that 20% of the Big Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions are tied to food — the third largest source behind buildings, which contribute 34% of emissions in the city, and transportation, which causes 22%.

Adams’ goal is to reduce food-related emissions produced by city government by 33% within seven years time, and to accomplish that he and city officials are taking aim at meat.

“Food impacts everything. It impacts our physical health, our mental health, our way of life, and today we are saying to New Yorkers, and really to the globe, that it impacts our planet,” Adams said Monday at the city’s Health & Hospitals Culinary Center in Brooklyn. “One in every five metric tons of carbon dioxide our city emits comes from food. But all food is not created equal. The vast majority of food that is contributing to our emission crisis lies in meat and dairy products.”

Cows and other livestock are responsible for causing about 14% of climate emissions worldwide, mostly from the methane produced from their burping and manure. Their impact is also felt indirectly when forests are cut down to make way for grazing.

Adams, who eats a plant-based diet and has focused on food policy since taking office last year, said that while the city has put much of its attention on reducing the carbon footprint that the city’s buildings produce, it hasn’t done enough when it comes to the impact food has on the environment.

The mayor expects that policies he’s already put in place will help further his goal, but Monday’s announcement did not make clear whether more is in store in terms of public policy — a detail critics were quick to pounce on.

In the city’s Health + Hospitals network, plant-based meals are the default option, and Adams said the facilities under its umbrella are now on track to serve 850,000 plant-based meals to patients in 2023.

In updated food standards set last year, the city has also put caps on the amount of meat it serves each week and a minimum requirement for plant-based options.

Adams did not commit to altering those standards again in pursuit of his emissions reduction goal, but one administration official predicted it’s likely the city will adjust them again.

The mayor also said he’s “challenging” the city’s private sector to reduce food-related emissions 25% by 2030, although it was not clear whether he plans to employ incentives or disincentives to help accomplish that goal. The administration official noted that those options are going to be explored as well.

Peter Sikora, the climate campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, praised the mayor’s goal as a “good, incremental step,” but said the city needs to be more explicit in its approach to reducing emissions from businesses.

“On some level, where’s the beef of dealing with the private sector aspect of this?” he said. “The rubber hits the road with the vast quantities of food that are served and consumed by the private sector and this does nothing on that.”

One approach Sikora suggested the city could take includes using its pension funds to disinvest from big businesses that aren’t taking an aggressive enough approach to reducing emissions tied to food production and consumption.

“What needs to happen here are requirements on the larger entities that the city can regulate and move,” he said. “That’s the kind of politics and approach to social policy that the mayor seems really averse to because it requires him standing up to big corporations.”

Adams has indeed been more inclined to work with the private sector than to antagonize it.

The data released Monday showing the impact of food-related emissions was culled in partnership with the EcoDataLab, American Express and C40, which is a network of mayors who’ve come together to combat climate change.

Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s chief climate officer, said that data set — the first analysis of food-related emissions in the city — as well as statistics on what’s produced by buildings and vehicles gives the city a “much more complete understanding of what we actually consume.”

Responding to Sikora’s criticisms, Adams’ spokesman Jonah Allon said that “the city is leading by example,” pointing to public hospitals’ menus and the introduction of Meatless Mondays and Plant-Powered Fridays in public schools.

“The mayor was clear that the private sector can and must be a partner in reducing our food-related emissions,” he said. “We have set an ambitious goal to reduce food-related emissions by 33% by 2030, and we look forward to working collaboratively with our private sector to achieve their emissions reduction target of 25% in that same time.”