LONDON —
Pope Francis I
could help reduce global carbon emissions by urging Catholics to return to not
eating meat on Fridays, UK researchers said on Tuesday.
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A team at
Cambridge University looked at the impact of a call by bishops in England and
Wales in 2011 to reinstate the practice.
They found that
despite only about a quarter of
Catholics changing their dietary habits, more
than 55,000 tonnes of carbon were saved each year.
In terms of
carbon dioxide emissions, that equated to 82,000 fewer people taking a return
flight from London to New York over a 12-month period.
The researchers
said that if meatless Fridays were reintroduced across the world, it could
mitigate millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases annually.
Lead author
Shaun Larcom, from Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy, said the
Catholic Church was “very well placed” to help.
The Pope, who
leads some one billion followers around the world, has said that climate change
is an “unprecedented threat” needing urgent action.
“Meat
agriculture is one of the major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions,” said
Larcom. “If the Pope was to reinstate the obligation for meatless Fridays to
all Catholics globally, it could be a major source of low-cost emissions
reductions.”
Even if only a
fraction of Catholics went meat-free on Fridays, the reductions could be
significant, he added.
The practice of
not eating meat on Fridays is one of the oldest Christian traditions, with fish
allowed as a protein substitute.
It has not been
an obligation on Catholics since Vatican reforms in the 1960s except during the
Lenten period before Easter, which commemorates Jesus’s death and resurrection.
The researchers
pointed out that the practice was observed so strictly by US Catholics that it
led to the invention of the Filet-o-Fish meal by the burger chain McDonald’s.
The study,
published on the Social Science Research Network, was based on analysis of
public health studies of dietary habits in England and Wales.
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