The FAIRR Initiative, an investor network supported by investors managing $52tr of assets, is warning of an “Apollo 13 moment” for the meat and dairy industry following the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) reveals that animal protein production is under significant and accelerating pressure from climate change – representing a significant material risk for investors.

“Investors will be concerned that the global animal agriculture sector could face an Apollo-13 moment – a near disaster that will take urgent innovation to survive – as the low-carbon transition forces investors to shift capital,” said Maria Lettini, executive director of FAIRR.

Apollo-13 refers to the near-disaster on the lunar mission, 52 years ago this month, when engineers had to help three astronauts reconfigure their CO2 filter system to ensure enough air for all three to survive the journey back to Earth.

Heat stress is already costing the US dairy industry around $897 to $1500m per year in revenue, and the US beef industry $369m per year according to FAIRR’s research, and the sort of innovation required by the meat industry is likely to require a broad embrace of alternative proteins, with FAIRR analysis suggesting that alternative proteins could amount to 64 per cent of the global protein market by 2060.

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