04 ★ EuroChoices 14(3) © 2015 Agricultural Economics Society and European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE) DOI: 10.1111/1746-692X.12103 Guest Editorial Meat and Milk Consumption 2050: the Potential for Demand-side Solutions to Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction La consommation de viande et de produits laitiers en 2050 : le potentiel d’approches axées sur la demande pour réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre Fleisch- und Milchverbrauch 2050: Das Potenzial nachfrageseitiger Lösungen zur Senkung der Treibhausgasemissionen Brian Revell The 21 st United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (30 November–11 December 2015) aims to achieve a binding agreement on reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all countries by the target date 2030. The Intergovernmen- tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its latest report on global warming has highlighted both the size of the problem and possible pathways to reduce emissions (IPCC, 2014). Whilst the IPCC left the reader rather to draw their own conclusions, a more recent report has unequivocally stated that the likelihood of meeting the tempera- ture target of limiting the rise in global temperatures to less than 2°C by 2100 compared with the late 19 th century with current policies, ‘… will not be possible unless the EU achieves its goal of an 80 per cent reduction by mid-century, the US and China both accelerate their progress, dramatically reducing their coal consumption in the next two decades, and India displaces its anticipated increase in coal consumption with an expansion of solar and other renewables. Other countries and regions must follow suit, with non-fossil technologies ultimately becoming disruptive for supporting economic development goals’ (King et al., 2015). Such is the nature of the global challenge being addressed. The IPCC report (IPCC, 2014) identified agriculture and land use change, at just under 12 Gt CO 2 eq., as contributing 24 per cent of total global anthropogenic GHG emissions, though a declining share since 2000. FAO has estimated that some 6.2 Gt of annual GHG emissions come from livestock production alone (Gerber et al., 2013), with over 5 Gt from ruminant milk and meat production, 83 per cent of the total. The meat and dairy sectors thus contribute about 57 per cent of agricultural GHG emis- sions. We can therefore be sure that agriculture and its livestock sector will feature in the debates and proposals of many individual coun- tries for emissions reductions. However, individual country propos- als and the multinational Paris negotiations will inevitably involve trade-offs of emissions reductions against other objectives and criteria. These will include issues of equity, economic efficiency, food security, ethics, environment and biodiversity that depend on the population size, Cattle raising. Inner Mongolia Professor Brian Revell, President of the Agricultural Economics Society, UK