Climate change is intensifying welfare challenges for farm animals through heat stress, drought, disease pressure, and weather extremes, while the livestock sector itself contributes significantly to emissions.
Climate change creates a feedback loop of farm animal welfare harms: increasing temperatures cause heat stress in livestock, reducing immune function and increasing disease; droughts reduce feed quality and availability; extreme weather events kill animals directly. While adapting farming to climate change is necessary, reducing livestock numbers through dietary change addresses both the welfare crisis and the contribution of livestock to climate change itself.