Cattle raised in an environment suited to them have a lower carbon footprint than raising them on former rainforest pasture, and by outsourcing cattle production to Brazil, who are actively clear-cutting the Amazon for the purpose of expanding the cattle industry, we also lose our carbon sink. Young trees are nowhere as effective at taking carbon out of the air as older trees, so replanting trees where there is current pasture is losing sight of the target, because we're busy turning old-growth-forest into pasture elsewhere in the world.

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/news-views/defras-plans-for...