Increasing Meat in the Chinese Diet and Environmental Degradation

Considering the negative impact of increased meat consumption on environment, this study aims to empirically investigate the relationship between meat consumption and environmental degradation in China. The study uses robust and recent econometric techniques based on time series data spanning from 1970 to 2016. Empirical tests of Hsiao et al. (2007) detect a nonlinear relationship between the various types of meat consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The nonlinear cointegration tests – Bierens (1997b) and Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds tests (Shin et al., 2014) – suggest that meat consumption has a significant long-run equilibrium relationship with GHG emissions. The impulse response functions indicate that the footprint, over time, of chicken and pork consumption is less damaging than that of aquaculture (fish) or beef. Subsequently, the nonlinear Granger causality analysis developed by Diks and Wolski (2015) indicates a bidirectional causality between the GHG and meats. However, there is some evidence to suggest that consumption of chicken and pork is less environmentally damaging. Given these findings, this study suggests that Chinese policymakers should reduce meat consumption in order to curb GHG emissions. In this vein, combining price and quantity instruments could be effective policy options to discourage meat consumption significantly