Global environmental costs of beef production

A study by Subak, Susan, 1999. Global environmental costs of beef production, Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 79-91, 7 compares US intensive meat cattle production with a traditional African pastoral system.
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The study includes assessment both of major land-use and energy-related emissions. The study concludes that although CO₂ emissions are greater with the US feedlot system, the methane intensity of the pastoral mode is much larger than the US one because of the lower productivity of system. Subak finds that when indirect sources, which include emissions from fossil fuels and foregone carbon storage on appropriated land, are considered as well as emissions from enteric fermentation and wastes, the social costs of the feedlot system at 15 kg CO₂ equivalent/kg beef are more than double that of the pastoralist system.

See also the section here for more on meat specifically and for life cycle analysis more generally.