Ratnasiri Shyama, Bandara Jayatilleke
Department of Accounting Finance and Economics, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
PLoS One. 2017 Feb 14;12(2):e0170130. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170130. eCollection 2017.
The Australian per capita consumption of ruminant meat such as beef and lamb has declined over the last two decades. Over the same period, however, per capita consumption of non-ruminant meat such as chicken and pork has continued to increase. Furthermore, it is now observed that the human consumption of kangaroo meat is on the rise. This study investigates the implications of these changes in meat consumption patterns on Green House Gases (GHGs) emission mitigation in Australia using a Vector Auto Regression (VAR) forecasting approach. Our results suggest that the increase will continue in non-ruminant meat consumption and this will not only offset the decline in ruminant meat consumption, but will also raise the overall per capita meat consumption by approximately 1% annually. The per capita GHGs emissions will likely decrease by approximately 2.3% per annum, due to the inclusion of non-ruminant meat in Australian diets. The GHGs emissions can further be reduced if the average Australian consumer partially replaces ruminant meat with kangaroo meat.
在过去二十年中，澳大利亚牛肉和羊肉等反刍动物肉类的人均消费量有所下降。然而，在同一时期，鸡肉和猪肉等非反刍动物肉类的人均消费量持续增加。此外，现在观察到人类对袋鼠肉的消费量正在上升。本研究使用向量自回归（VAR）预测方法，调查了这些肉类消费模式变化对澳大利亚温室气体（GHG）减排的影响。我们的结果表明，非反刍动物肉类消费将持续增加，这不仅将抵消反刍动物肉类消费的下降，还将使人均肉类总消费量每年提高约1%。由于澳大利亚饮食中纳入了非反刍动物肉类，人均温室气体排放量可能每年减少约2.3%。如果澳大利亚普通消费者用袋鼠肉部分替代反刍动物肉类，温室气体排放量可以进一步降低。
