A group of scientists have found going vegetarian isn't the answer to preventing climate change.

The research was led by MPI and concludes that if you adopted a meat-free diet at 25, you'd reduce your lifetime global warming contribution by just 2 to 4 percent.

It would lessen your impact more significantly to begin with, because of the reduction in methane.

But the study argues that methane degrades after about 10 years unlike carbon dioxide which accumulates in the atmosphere long-term, so the impact isn't as big over a lifetime.

Nick Smith is a researcher at Massey University's Riddet Institute and he told Mike Hosking dietary changes should always be made with the nutritional effects in mind.

“If you’re thinking about shifting your diet… it’s important to know what the nutritional changes are going to be and to have the context of what level of impact you’re actually going to be having.”

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