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Analyzing Brazilian newspapers' climate coverage leading up to 2010, this article shows that climate change was framed as an energy problem although energy is a small part of the country’s emissions compared to emissions from land use change and agriculture. While meat production is the single largest cause of national emissions, discussions of meat as a problem in the context of climate change were marginal, at best. To the extent that the topic of meat appeared, it was underdeveloped and approached in ways that reduced attention, concern, and agency on the part of Brazilians to steer the country towards a new, more sustainable development path. This paper presents these findings and offers a preliminary political economic explanation for its existence.