UC Davis Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist Frank Mitloehner: Mitloehner traces much of the public confusion over meat and milk’s role in climate change to two sentences in a 2006 United Nations report, titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” Printed only in the report’s executive summary and nowhere in the body of the report, the sentences read: “The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport.” These statements are not accurate, yet their wide distribution through news media have put us on the wrong path toward solutions, Mitloehner says. “We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk. …
Mitloehner particularly objects to the U.N.’s statement that livestock account for more greenhouse gases than transportation, when there is no generally accepted global breakdown of gas production by industrial sector.
See: 2006 UN report: Cow ’emissions’ more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars

…”This lopsided ‘analysis’ is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue,” Mitloehner said.