Your analysis of the climate impacts of clean protein is really interesting and the dual benefits of clean protein R&D on the environment and animal welfare are definitely worth highlighting, but I agree that in the long-term it’s unlikely to be competitive with clean energy R&D.
However, I think what’s more interesting is:
That there are just so many similarities in modelling the problem of climate change and factory farming i.e. benefits of clean energy R&D and clean protein R&D.
Put simplistically, if you were to take the Let’s Fund clean energy analysis (lets-fund.org/clean-energy) and replace the negative externalities (i.e. “emissions” with “farm animal suffering”) and solution the “clean energy R&D” with “clean protein R&D”—I think you might still get a lot of mileage out it.
For instance, in the climate change report I had the following crucial considerations:
The focus of advanced economies like EU countries to prioritize reducing their own domestic emissions is a natural impulse (‘clean up your own backyard first’). But 75% of all emissions will come from emerging economies such as China and India by 2040. Only if advanced economies’ climate policies reduce emissions in all countries, will we prevent dangerous climate change.
For this reason, the best climate policies are those that stimulate clean energy innovation. Advanced economies need to provide the global public good of cheaper clean energy technology. Only technology spillovers help all countries reduce their emissions, because they lower the cost of low-carbon energy and make carbon taxes more likely.
Many policies stimulate clean energy innovation and create global technology spillovers (e.g. carbon taxes, subsidies for renewable energy, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies). But the most effective policy is increasing government budgets for public clean energy research and development (R&D).
Public clean energy R&D is neglected: only $22 billion is spent per year globally. Many advanced economies such as the US could unilaterally increase this substantially i.e. even without international coordination.
Clean protein R&D’s effect on farm animal welfare is similar, where a lot of demand for meat will come from emerging economies, and, because of the global technology spillover, if we were to make clean protein cheaper for all countries, it would reduce factory farming globally, and thus dominate interventions like corporate campaigns, vegan advocacy, meat taxes, etc.
As you write, it’s often good to use leverage through policy advocacy for more clean protein R&D.
Here I feel like the Good Food Institute is most similar to the effective clean energy R&D advocacy interventions:
One of the The Good Food Institute missions is “educate grant-making institutions, corporations, and governmental bodies about plant-based and clean meat R&D as a critical component of endeavors related to sustainability, climate change, and global health.“
“Following GFI lobbying, Congress registered its support for alternative protein research in the fiscal 2020 Senate Agriculture Appropriations Report, and it included new language providing extra funding for the Agricultural Research Service to conduct research on pulses. GFI also launched GFI-Israel, now a team of four, and expanded the size of their affiliates in Brazil, India, Asia Pacific, and Europe (now ~25 total across the five offices).”
Similarly, one of New Harvest’s missions is to “educate and inform stakeholders and the public at large of what cellular agriculture research is, and why it is necessary, in an honest, transparent, science-based manner.” Increasing neglected basic government R&D e.g. on tissue engineering might have very large leverage. For instance, in the US, the National Institutes of Health funds most tissue-engineering research, but focuses on biomedical applications; the Department of Agriculture funds most food-science studies, but spends little on clean meat. Advocacy to increase interdisciplinary research on this might be very effective to increase overall R&D budgets.
Excellent post—strong upvote!
Your analysis of the climate impacts of clean protein is really interesting and the dual benefits of clean protein R&D on the environment and animal welfare are definitely worth highlighting, but I agree that in the long-term it’s unlikely to be competitive with clean energy R&D.
However, I think what’s more interesting is:
That there are just so many similarities in modelling the problem of climate change and factory farming i.e. benefits of clean energy R&D and clean protein R&D.
The resulting “Extreme cost-effectiveness of clean protein R&D”
Put simplistically, if you were to take the Let’s Fund clean energy analysis (lets-fund.org/clean-energy) and replace the negative externalities (i.e. “emissions” with “farm animal suffering”) and solution the “clean energy R&D” with “clean protein R&D”—I think you might still get a lot of mileage out it.
For instance, in the climate change report I had the following crucial considerations:
Clean protein R&D’s effect on farm animal welfare is similar, where a lot of demand for meat will come from emerging economies, and, because of the global technology spillover, if we were to make clean protein cheaper for all countries, it would reduce factory farming globally, and thus dominate interventions like corporate campaigns, vegan advocacy, meat taxes, etc.
As you write, it’s often good to use leverage through policy advocacy for more clean protein R&D.
Here I feel like the Good Food Institute is most similar to the effective clean energy R&D advocacy interventions:
One of the The Good Food Institute missions is “educate grant-making institutions, corporations, and governmental bodies about plant-based and clean meat R&D as a critical component of endeavors related to sustainability, climate change, and global health.“
“Following GFI lobbying, Congress registered its support for alternative protein research in the fiscal 2020 Senate Agriculture Appropriations Report, and it included new language providing extra funding for the Agricultural Research Service to conduct research on pulses. GFI also launched GFI-Israel, now a team of four, and expanded the size of their affiliates in Brazil, India, Asia Pacific, and Europe (now ~25 total across the five offices).”
Similarly, one of New Harvest’s missions is to “educate and inform stakeholders and the public at large of what cellular agriculture research is, and why it is necessary, in an honest, transparent, science-based manner.” Increasing neglected basic government R&D e.g. on tissue engineering might have very large leverage. For instance, in the US, the National Institutes of Health funds most tissue-engineering research, but focuses on biomedical applications; the Department of Agriculture funds most food-science studies, but spends little on clean meat. Advocacy to increase interdisciplinary research on this might be very effective to increase overall R&D budgets.
Further links:
Protein Industries Canada | Unleashing the Potential of Canadian Crops
Japan is investing in protein research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_EeTu8MEw
How Government-Funded Research on Alternative Proteins Can Grow the Bioeconomy
https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/federal-support-for-alt-protein
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food/cultivated-meat
https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/econ-recovery-ag-innovation