I was happy to read supportive comments made by Iceland’s prime minister about cultivated meat.

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, cultivated meat is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. It has the potential to dramatically reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions, pandemic risk and the suffering we inflict on animals.

“Cultivated meat is one of the solutions to the climate challenge,” Katrín Jakobsdóttir said. “The Icelandic authorities are determined to pave the way for the adoption of new solutions in Iceland and we are eager to see the development of [a European Union] regulatory framework for cultivated meat.”

Instead of attempting to ban this new protein, as some American politicians have, our leaders should help advance the technology behind it.

For instance, cultivated meat is currently too expensive to mass produce. This can be rectified with increased public funding for cultivated-meat research, which legislators should support.

Jon Hochschartner is a journalist and author who has written about animal rights. He lives in Granby, Connecticut.