Consumers' awareness and behavior intention on meat consumption according to climate change

Globally, consumers' enormous and increasing appetite for meat is one of the biggest causes of climate change because livestock industry emits more greenhouse gas than transportation. The purpose of this study is to analyze consumer awareness about the impact of meat consumption on sustainability in response to climate change. Based on the theory of planned behavior, the attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, prior knowledge, and risk perception variables were analyzed to evaluate the impact of climate change awareness over consumer behavior on meat consumption. Major findings are as follows: consumers were aware of climate change but has made few changes to their meat consumption. In addition, changes in meat consumption were found to be caused by health safety concerns, such as disease outbreaks. Significant variables related to meat consumption patterns associated to climate change impacts were household income, age, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and prior knowledge. These results suggest some implications for policy. There is a need for public relations and education to make the public aware of and better understanding of link between climate change and diet. Also, government should make efforts to raise awareness of mitigation of climate change such as comprehensive food labels which are identifying lesser impacts on climate and better dietary guideline instructions which would include coping with climate change.