McDonald’s Struggles to Fix Its Massive Methane Problem

With a sprawling empire of 39,000 restaurants in 119 countries, McDonald’s Corp. serves more beef than any other restaurant chain on the planet — between one to two percent of the world’s total. Selling hundreds of hamburgers every second has entrenched the fast-food giant as an outsized contributor to climate change.

Cattle belch out large quantities of heat-trapping methane, making beef the most harmful food for the climate, with at least five-times the warming of pork or chicken and more than 15-times the impact of nuts or lentils. Beef is responsible for about a third of McDonald’s climate footprint. At more than 53 million metric tons of carbon per year, McDonald’s produces more emissions than Norway — and that number is still rising.