https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-emissions-supply-cha...
I don't buy the future decarbonization transport argument. It is a mirage. But put that aside.
Cows are incredibly powerful creatures. Their uses were in not just taking up a lot of land but also moving lots of farm equipment and cultivating land. With machinery, they are displaced and no parallel uses are found.
The huge consumption of meat has incentivized capitalist industries to destruct land for profit. Blaming this on cows is like blaming a worker instead of the boss. Blame the overly large consumers who cannot forgo meat, and blame the capitalists for feeding that frenzy. How despicable have we become if our arguments are now based on “lab grown meat" being a solution. Like we refuse to see our own feces as a stinker.
I do agree that there are many problems with our food system beyond climate change, and replacing Big Ag with Big Lab-grown Ag would leave almost all of those problems in place. It's not my preferred solution.