Well, good morning, everybody, and thank you very much for the invitation to address this meeting, the Veterinary Green Discussion Forum in 2023. It's a very important subject, and as an ambassador for Vet Sustain, I'm delighted to contribute, to your meeting. I'm sorry I can't be there in person.
And I'd like to acknowledge the great work that Laura Higham and Vet Sustain do on this subject, and I'd like to also thank and acknowledge the, the great work Anthony Chadwick has been doing in putting together this meeting, which I understand is the second of this type. Now, there are two aspects to the issue of sustainability in veterinary science, and, and, and, two aspects, to which vets can contribute, and one, of course, is in everyday clinical practise to ensure the sustainability of, of the products we use, reduce single-use plastic use, reduce, anaesthetic gas leakages. And so on and so forth and and those are important contributions we can make, and I think others in the meeting will be talking about that.
The second aspect I want to focus on is what I would call bigger picture issues, which involve in many cases, a veterinary dimension and give an opportunity where all of us involved in veterinary science can contribute either directly or indirectly by advocacy to ensure the sustainability of our planet, and the health and welfare of humans, animals, and the environment in it. Now some of my views may seem a little bit contrary, but I will, will, I hope, provoke discussion. I mean, key amongst the, the big issues with the veterinary dimension, I would list are food security, antimicrobial resistance, environmental pollution, emerging infections and pandemic preparedness, and of course climate change.
Now, all of you, I'm sure are familiar with the new agricultural Act which was passed in 2020, which is revolutionising the way taxpayers' money supports our farming industry, and it it is working under the mantra of public money for public goods. It will redirect that public money to help support. Activities which will address, help to address and help to mitigate some of these big issue challenges, notably climate change, sustainability of, of, the environment and so on, and animal health and welfare.
With regard to climate change, we all agree about the need to decarbonize our economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But I want to draw attention to the global complexities that are involved, which in my opinion can demand a more nuanced approach, than the short term challenges and fixes which may paradoxically worsen the long term achievement of the global goals. I mean, if we consider, for example, net zero, a metric which we hear about and read about every day, this is an internationally agreed metric, but it's important that we all fully understand what it includes and what it does not include.
Notably, it does not include air travel, it does not include burning biomass, such as the fact that we import vast amounts of timber products from all over the world to burn at Drax Power Station, the CO2 emissions of which do not contribute to our net zero emissions. And lastly and most importantly, it does not include, of course, any of the emissions associated with the manufacture and import of all of the goods and services that we do import. And with regard to this latter omission.
It's immediately apparent then. That one way of accelerating our route to net zero would be to import as much as we can, food, energy, goods and services. And indeed our balance of payments is negative, and it suggests we are doing that.
But of course, by doing that, the corollary is that we're exporting all the associated negatives associated with that importation, including emissions, but also animal welfare standards, and indeed environmental standards and human welfare considerations. So progressing to net zero rapidly may give us a self-satisfied feeling, but if we are exporting emissions, it would do absolutely nothing for global sustainability and climate change. There is only one atmosphere up there.
And exporting our emissions to countries like India, China, and, and others contributes to global warming potential in that atmosphere. And if we do that as well, we potentially will be destroying many of our key industries, including food production. If we look, for example, at secular changes from 1997 to 2016, the net zero calculations, there's been a reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions from 740 megatons to 473 megatons.
That's between 97 and 216, a reduction of 36%, which sounds pretty good. But the change in total carbon footprint over that period. Has been from 861 megatons to 784 megatons, only an 8.9% reduction.
So that isn't so good. And reflects this disparity between net zero and total carbon footprint. So I suggest that while pursuing the international goal of net zero, we need to be constantly aware of our total carbon footprint.
Otherwise, we risk exporting emissions and damaging, if not eliminating our own industries, which may actually be less environmentally damaging to the environment. Which brings me to food production more particularly. And we have a huge role to play in that, of course, as vets and members of the veterinary team.
And there is much concern, quite rightly, about methane emissions from ruminants. And as most of you, all of you, I'm sure aware, this is important because methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, some 28 times greater warming potential than CO2. To reduce methane output from livestock then, is an important aim and considerable progress is being made in terms of feed additives, for example.
Furthermore, we know that methane emissions from ruminants is a heritable characteristic. So novel breeding techniques like gene editing, which can achieve relatively quick changes, which would take decades by selective breeding, offer promise, and it's worth noting in that respect, the recent passing of the genetic technology bracket precision breeding closed bracket act earlier this year. And that includes animals as well as plants and is about the better regulation of processes like modern biotechnology processes like gene editing.
So I think there is some important opportunities there to improve or to reduce methane emissions by improving the genetic characteristics of our livestock in pretty relatively quick time. Importantly, of course, and more immediately, the control of disease in ruminants, the reduction of morbidity and mortality, provides a very immediate, immediate way of, of reducing methane output per unit of production. And for example, better control of gut worms in sheep can reduce by some 10% the greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production.
And there, there are examples of a number of other diseases in dairy cattle, for example, like yonis particularly and others, where there are great improvements in efficiency with regard to reducing methane emissions per unit of production, by controlling better those endemic. Diseases Another, and, and it's worth noting, by the way, that with our largely grass-fed based rearing systems in the UK we already produce 1 kilogramme of beef at less than half the average global greenhouse gas emissions. Another significant fact, of course, about methane is that short half-life in the atmosphere compared with CO2.
It has a half-life of 10 to 12 years in the atmosphere, whereas CO2 basically persists for hundreds and hundreds of years, and so has been accumulating throughout the industrial revolution and is still accumulating today. And this recognition of the short half-life of methane has led to scientists such as Professor Miles Allen at the Martin Institute in Oxford to propose a new metric GWP star to reflect this. And arguably this new metric substantially changes the way we consider methane emissions from livestock.
For example, if one starts with a population of cattle at year 0, and that population remains stable, the methane it produces reaches equilibrium within 20 to 30 years, where degradation in the atmosphere equals new emissions into the atmosphere. So the heating potential remains stable after that period from a notional starting point. This is in marked contrast to CO2 emissions, which, as I've said, continually accumulate over hundreds of years.
And so, we note, for example, that the UK dairy herd has reduced in size over the last 25 years, by some 28% whilst maintaining productivity or even increasing. So that means that the methane in the atmosphere produced by our national dairy herd has declined by a similar level of nearly 30% in in the last 25 years, which is a substantial reduction. Now, so I would, I would suggest that for as long as humans want to consume meat and dairy, and it certainly would be advisable, and we all agree that perhaps some of us should eat rather less meat and dairy, but there's no question there will continue to be a huge demand globally, and in fact the global demand is rising and set to rise.
One could argue that we in the UK should be producing as much. Meat and dairy, from cattle, say, in sustainable grass-fed systems, that, that are as far as possible they are compatible with forestry and biodiversity. And certainly we shouldn't be importing meat and dairy products, for example, which are produced in less sustainable ways.
Another small example of the nuances of the climate debate, not a particularly veterinary relevance, but which I think is an interesting example of the complexity of of situations that policymakers face is the controlled burning of heather on grass, on grouse moors, so called mule burn in in Scotland. There are important, environmental issues around that, such as, the actual emission of, of, of the greenhouse gases due to the burning of the heather, the possible burning and destruction of peat, and conversely, the preservation of peat, which is a very important carbon sink. But those environmental issues can get conflated as well in a political and public debate with issues like shooting, biodiversity and the rural economy.
The UK government has considered banning controlled heather burning, and the Scottish Government is actively considering this at the minute. But research is beginning to indicate that such controlled burning of rank vegetation need not risk igniting peat, but in fact, on the contrary, has an important potential role in reducing the risk of devastating wildfires. Which create really intense heat, and ignite the peat, resulting in a much greater release of greenhouse gas emissions.
And I was in the Northern Highlands just last week, in fact, where one of the biggest wildfires seen in the UK was happening around the place called Cannock up near Inverness. And could be seen from space apparently. Now I want to turn finally a little bit to environmental pollution issues which are being dealt with by some speakers later.
Andrew Prentice is going to talk about . Pollution with ectoparasiticides, and this is a matter of growing interest and concern, particularly in the context of companion animal use of ectoparasiticides, and it's important to note that for companion animals currently regulations do not require an environmental impact assessment of such products before their marketing. And research which Andrew will talk about at the Grantham Institute at Imperial, is suggesting that there are disturbingly high levels of certain aparasiticides including neonicotinoids, in the aquatic environment, which evidence is increasingly suggesting are derived from companion animal use.
There are also other groups, and, and notably at the University of Essex who've been looking at antibiotic pollution of the environment, we are all as best, I think, very much aware that the administration of antibiotics to humans or animals does lead to the excretion of substantial amounts of the doses given. Either unchanged or, in the form of biologically active breakdown products into the aquatic environment, and we need to know much more about their origin and their effects on the environment. But we should remember, of course, as well, that antibiotics, most of them are derived initially from naturally occurring microorganisms in, in the environment like streptomyces, and they've been there for a long time, way before Alexander Fleming made his dramatic discoveries, so we might pose a question, what's been the effect of these naturally occurring antibiotics in the environment over those years.
The last point I would just make about antimicrobial resistance AMR. Is that we need to be well aware, certainly for considerations in the UK, that this is not exactly the same as antibiotic resistance. Antimicrobial resistance includes consideration of, the effects of resistance to viruses like HIV.
TB, and to malaria, for example, none of which involve, antibiotic use in the, in the veterinary context, but the losses that are quantified in things like the O'Neill commission report, the both the mortality threats and the economic damage of potential antibiotic resistance. Is much more specific than the figures which the O'Neill report mentions for antimicrobial resistance, and we need to differentiate that in the UK where we do not have malaria, we, we, and as vets, we, we certainly are not using drugs that might be used to treat HIV, for example. So, finally, I hope this brief introduction has, has made us all a bit more aware of of the complexities of many of the decisions that need to be made on evidence.
We are an evidence-based profession, . But in moving to sustainable solutions to climate change, environmental pollution, and some of the other big issues that I mentioned, we need to be cognizant of the global dimension, and we need to be aware of the complexities and nuances often involved in these tricky problems. And the veterinary profession and veterinary sciences has much to contribute to these major issues, which affects us both nationally here and globally.
And many vets are already contributing, and I hope many more will become engaged with these issues, and I hope you have a very successful meeting, and we'll be able to discuss some of these issues and may even perhaps come to some solutions, but certainly galvanise interest and activity and involvement from our whole profession. Thank you very much indeed.