Committed emissions from U.S. meatpacking plants overshoot emissions budgets by 15-84%

To understand the extent to which reducing non-CO2 emissions from beef will require asset stranding in the meatpacking sector, we quantify the committed emissions associated with the cattle slaughter capacity of the 44 largest U.S. meatpacking plants. We compare these commitments against emissions budgets derived from EAT-Lancet scenarios and four IPCC AR6 IAMs. Committed emissions overshoot most non-CO₂ beef emissions budgets by 15–84% even with the full adoption of available mitigation measures, implying unavoidable asset stranding if budget constraints are enforced. Budgets that avoid overshoot rely heavily on sequestration or shifting mitigation burdens to other sectors or countries. Half of plants account for 76% of committed emissions. Adhering to emissions budgets would require premature plant retirement or capacity reductions of 16–83% (5.4–27 million head of cattle annually). This highlights the need to explicitly model and politically navigate the industry-wide transition costs of adequately reducing beef-sector emissions.