Climate change is already affecting farm animal welfare through heat stress, disease range shifts, and extreme weather events. Understanding these connections supports integrated policy responses that address both climate and welfare objectives.
The relationship between climate change and farm animal welfare is bidirectional and increasingly important: livestock agriculture contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, while climate change in turn creates new and intensified welfare challenges for farm animals. This bidirectional relationship creates policy opportunities where addressing climate and welfare objectives simultaneously is more achievable than addressing either in isolation. Heat stress is the most immediate climate-welfare connection: as temperatures rise, the proportion of livestock populations experiencing welfare-compromising heat stress increases, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions where most global livestock production occurs and where climate change effects are most pronounced. Emerging infectious diseases whose geographic ranges are expanding with warming temperatures create disease welfare threats in populations with no prior immunity. The systemic lever that addresses both dimensions — reducing global consumption of animal products, particularly those from intensive systems with high emissions and poor welfare — is the most powerful integrated response available. Supporting higher-welfare, lower-emission food production systems through purchasing decisions and policy advocacy creates welfare and climate co-benefits that neither approach achieves in isolation.