Climate change threatens farm animal welfare through heat stress, disease shifts, and feed scarcity — while animal agriculture contributes significantly to emissions driving these changes.
The relationship between animal agriculture, climate change, and animal welfare is a feedback loop: intensive farming contributes to climate change, which worsens welfare outcomes for billions of animals through heat stress, disease, and habitat disruption. Breaking this loop requires both reducing the climate impact of animal agriculture and adapting farming systems to the changing climate. For welfare advocates, this means that climate advocacy and animal welfare advocacy are deeply aligned. Diets that reduce animal product consumption simultaneously improve welfare outcomes and reduce climate contributions — one of the strongest alignments available in food system action.