the food climate research network

Food Climate Research Network (FCRN)

The Food Climate Research Network conducts, synthesises, and communicates research at the intersection of food, climate, and broader sustainability issues. Based at the University of Oxford, they work to inform and connect stakeholders with a common interest in understanding and building sustainable food systems.

Food Climate Research Network (FCRN)

The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) is an interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international research-based network focused on food systems, climate and sustainability.

Our vision is for a nutrition-driven, ethically mindful food system that sits within environmental limits. To achieve this we carry out research and help catalyse collaborative research projects that investigate the multifaceted challenges we face and the solutions that are possible. We are convinced that we need to work together – across sectors, disciplines and perspectives – to build mutual understanding and collaborate for change.

FCRN’s three main aims are to: a ) Communicate information on food systems, climate change and the intersection with other social, ethical and environmental concerns b ) Bring people together to share knowledge and ideas c ) Act as ‘honest broker’ between different stakeholders, who may have very different perspectives and priorities.

The FCRN is based at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford but has a global membership of over 1100 active network members from 70 countries across a range of sectors and disciplines.

Undertake research into food systems and sustainability
Deliver regular information on food-sustainability issues from multiple disciplinary perspectives through our weekly newsletter .
Provide a comprehensive source of information on food systems sustainability issues through our extensive website research library .
Seek to engage our members by fostering ‘horizontal’ knowledge sharing and collaboration

The food system today is destroying the environment upon which future food production depends while failing to deliver nutritious affordable food for all. At the same time, the impacts of climatic and environmental change are starting to make food production more difficult and unpredictable in many regions of the world.

We believe the EAT forum provides a very timely platform, enabling stakeholders from various disciplines and sectors to connect and engage in solutions-oriented discussions on the challenges that face our global food system. We hope it will build upon the momentum that is gathering around the concept of sustainable healthy diets and help create some common ground on how we can move towards a more sustainable and equitable food system, that is able to deliver nutritious, healthy and culturally appropriate food to a growing global population, today and in the future.

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Published on November 19, 2018

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The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) report from the EAT Forum

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Submitted by Dijana Maric on Thu, 05/06/2014 - 16:46

From the FCRN blog:

The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) participated in the recently organised EAT Forum in Stockholm. This initiative, founded by the Stordalen foundation in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre is intended to be a major annual event in which science, policy and business stakeholders from all over the world come together to help set goals and guidelines for a more sustainable and healthier food future.

The very first EAT Forum kicked off on the 26-27 May 2014. The FCRN is one of the Forum’s strategic partners.

Over the course of two days, around 500 representatives from academia, business, NGOs, UN-organisations and the philanthropic community gathered with the ambition of taking a holistic approach to food system sustainability issues. The participation of global leaders such as Bill Clinton, Richard Horton (The Lancet), Peter Bakker (WBCSD - World Business Council for Sustainable Development), David Nabarro (UN special representative on Food Security and Nutrition) and Michiel Bakker (Director, Global Food Services, Google) indicated the high ambition level - the intention being to galvanize support for healthy sustainable food systems and diets through a global coalition.

Cambridge University Research News on Food Security

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Food and Climate Change InfoGuide

Fact Sheet by David Sandalow , Cynthia Rosenzweig , Matthew Hayek + 4 more • May 03, 2021

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The food system contributes more than 30% of the heat-trapping gases emitted by human activities globally each year. [1] If those emissions continue to increase at their current pace, meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C (2.7°F) goal would be impossible even if non-food system emissions fell to zero immediately. [2]

Food and climate impacts go both ways. Climate change creates significant risks to the food system, with rising temperatures and changing weather patterns threatening enormous damage to crops, supply chains and livelihoods in the decades ahead. [3]

The food system touches everyone. Hundreds of millions of people work in agriculture and other aspects of food production, with the highest percentages in developing countries. [4] More than a billion people, mostly women, prepare food as a central part of everyday activities. [5] Food choices play a central role in human health and culture.

This InfoGuide provides background on the food system (Part 1), climate change (Part 2), the impact of the food system on climate change (Part 3) and the impact of climate change on the food system (Part 4). The final section (Part 5) presents strategies for reducing emissions from the food system and improving the resilience of the food system to climate change.

1. FOOD SYSTEM OVERVIEW

The food system spans a vast array of activities—from land clearing to fertilizer manufacturing to crop growing to livestock production to fish harvesting to meal preparation to landfill management. It includes food production, transport, processing, packaging, storage, consumption and disposal.

Figure 1: A simplified diagram of food system activities [6]

Economic Value

A 2019 World Bank study estimated that the food system contributes $8 trillion per year to gross domestic product (GDP)—roughly 10% of the global economy. [7]

The food system supports the livelihoods of over 1 billion people. [8]
In general, agriculture’s share of the economy declines as countries grow wealthier.
In low-income countries, agriculture contributes 22% of GDP on average.
In middle-income countries, agriculture contributes 8% of GDP on average.
In high-income countries, agriculture contributes 1% of GDP on average. [9]
In 2019, the export value of all food products traded internationally was over $1.8 trillion. [10]

Roughly 35% of the world’s total land area excluding Antarctica is used for agriculture. [11]

Of the total land area used for agriculture, roughly two-thirds are pastures and rangelands for livestock grazing and production. [12]
Overgrazing is the number one cause of land degradation and desertification globally, causing about 35% of human induced soil degradation. [13]
The vast majority of tropical deforestation (75%–90%) stems from expanding agricultural land for the production of commodities such as beef, soy and palm oil. Deforestation is occurring most rapidly in Latin America, followed by Africa. [14]

The food system and energy system are deeply intertwined. Every part of the food system uses energy. Roughly 30% of global energy consumption comes from the food system. [15]

Most energy used in the food system comes from fossil fuels, although renewable energy’s share is rising. Many agricultural production areas have good access to solar and wind resources. [16]
Roughly 5% of global natural gas demand is for the synthesis of nitrogen fertilizers. [17]

Over 40% of human calories come directly from three crops: rice, wheat and maize. [18] These three crops account for roughly two-thirds of all human calories (including rice, wheat and maize used as feed for livestock consumed by humans). [19] Soybeans have the fourth largest production area of all crops globally. [20]

In 2018, Asia consumed roughly 88% of the world’s rice and 59% of the world’s wheat. [21]
The US produces the most maize in the world. [22] In 2019, about a third of corn produced in the US was used for ethanol production, one-third for domestic animal feed and another third for domestic consumption and exports. [23]
In 2019/2020, Brazil led the world with 37% of global soy production, followed closely by the US with 36%. About 70% of global soy production is processed into protein meal for animal feed. [24]

Livestock Production

In 2018, global livestock production neared 24 billion chickens, 1.5 billion heads of cattle, 1.2 billion sheep, 1 billion goats and 980 million pigs. [25]

Between 2008 and 2018, the number of chickens raised annually grew 25%—by far the fastest growing livestock group. The number of goats grew by 16%, sheep by 10%, cattle by 5% and pigs by 4%. (The human population grew roughly 12% during this period.) [26]
China produces nearly half of global pig meat. The United States is the world’s largest producer of beef and poultry. [27]

Fisheries and Aquaculture

In 2017, fish provided 17% of global animal protein intake and 7% of all protein consumed. [28]

In 2018, 54% of total fish production came from capture fisheries, while 46% came from aquaculture. [29]
Global fish consumption between 1961 and 2017 grew faster than all other animal foods. [30]

Food Preparation

More than 2.6 billion people lack access to clean cooking technologies, depending on biomass, kerosene or coal as their primary cooking fuel. [31]

In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 80% of households lack access to clean cooking. In India, roughly half of households lack such access. [32]
Household air pollution—primarily from cooking smoke—is associated with nearly 2.5 million premature deaths annually. [33] In many developing countries, the burden of collecting fuel for cooking falls disproportionately on women and children, who also face greater exposure to pollutants from cooking smoke. [34]

Undernourishment and Obesity

The food system is plagued by distributional inequities.

There are enough protein, carbohydrates and fat produced each year to meet the dietary needs of every person on Earth. [35] Yet nearly 2 billion people suffered from undernourishment in 2019. [36] Of those 2 billion, 690 million people—9% of the world’s population—faced hunger. [37]
At the same time, another 2 billion adults are overweight or obese. [38] The global prevalence of diabetes has nearly doubled in the past 30 years and is predicted to continue increasing due to dietary changes. [39]
Within many countries, there are problems with undernourishment and obesity simultaneously. [40]
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased the number of hungry people globally. In addition, some comorbidities that increase the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 — including diabetes, hypertension and heart disease — are associated with unhealthy high-calorie diets (such as those rich in refined carbohydrates, added sugar, saturated fats and red meat). [41]

Food Loss and Waste

Roughly one-third of food that is produced is never consumed. This food is either lost in the field on the way to the consumer or wasted in institutional settings, stores, homes or restaurants. [42]

About 30% of all food loss and waste occurs at the production stage. [43]
In 2016, approximately 14% of global agricultural production was lost during postharvest and distribution. [44]
Roughly 8% of the world’s annual food supply is wasted by households and restaurants as they prepare and dispose of their daily meals. [45]
Over 10% of the world’s total energy consumption is used to provide food that is lost or wasted. [46]

Biodiversity

The conversion of natural forests to produce food commodities is the single greatest driver of habitat loss globally. [47]

Agriculture is estimated to drive about 70% of biodiversity loss and 80% of deforestation globally. [48]
The food consumed in one country can have an impact on the biodiversity of another. For example, 95% of the impact of Swiss food consumption is felt abroad, with coffee, cocoa and palm oil plantations all contributing to habitat loss in other countries. [49]

2. CLIMATE CHANGE OVERVIEW

Atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases are now higher than any time in human history. This is changing the Earth’s climate. [50]

The principal heat-trapping gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases (such as HFCs and SF6). These are also commonly referred to as greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide is responsible for roughly 76% of the warming impact of these gases globally. Methane is responsible for roughly 16%, nitrous oxide for 6% and fluorinated gases for 2%. [51]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds with very high confidence that atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases are now higher than any time in at least 800,000 years. [52]
The Earth’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.14°C (2.05°F) since the late 19th century. [53]
The seven warmest years on record have been the past seven years. [54]

Human activities are the principal cause of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Those activities include burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and land use change. [55]

Roughly 25% of global emissions come from electricity and heat production, 21% come from industry and 14% come from transport. [56]
Roughly 24% of global emissions come from agricultural, forestry and other land use. [57]

The impacts of a changing climate are being felt across the globe.

Storms and heat waves have increased in frequency and intensity in recent decades. [58]
Warming air temperatures and droughts made more likely by climate change have directly contributed to increased fire risk in many parts of the world. Changes in climate over the past 30 years are associated with a doubling of extreme fire weather conditions in California. [59]

The world is not on a path to meet globally-agreed climate change goals.

More than 190 nations have adopted the Paris Agreement, which calls for “holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels” and “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels.” [60]
However, policies currently in place around the world would result in a global average temperature increase of 2.9°C (5.2°F) by 2100, and many policies to limit emissions are not being fully implemented. [61]

Billions of people face extraordinary risks unless the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere slows and then reverses in the decades ahead. [62]

Those risks include more severe and frequent storms, floods, droughts and heat waves, as well as sea level rise. [63]
Climate change is expected to increase heat-related mortality rates and the incidence of lung and heart disease associated with poor air quality. Higher temperatures and more frequent flooding events caused by climate change contribute to the spread of infectious and vector-borne communicable diseases such as dengue, malaria, hantavirus and cholera. [64]

3. FOOD SYSTEM IMPACTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The IPCC estimates that the food system is responsible for 21%–37% of heat-trapping gases emitted by human activities globally. [65] A study published in Nature in March 2021 estimates that the food system is responsible for a third of heat-trapping gases emitted globally. [66] Work from the authors of this paper confirms that estimate. [67]

Figure 2: Food system emissions, by category, as a percentage of total anthropogenic emissions (2018)

Food-Related Forestry and Land Use Change

Forestry and land use changes related to the food system are responsible for between 5% and 14% of all anthropogenic emissions of heat-trapping gases. [68]

Agriculture is responsible for approximately three-quarters of global emissions associated with forest loss. [69]
In 2018, agricultural land use and land use change were responsible for emissions of nearly 4 Gt CO2-eq (roughly 8% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases). This included emissions from cutting forests, burning savanna and draining peatlands. [70]

Pre-Production Emissions

Pre-Production emissions include emissions associated with fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing and the production of farm equipment such as tractors and irrigation pumps. There is currently a dearth of country-level data on emissions from these sources.

On-Farm Emissions

Agriculture is a major source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Roughly half of anthropogenic methane emissions and three-quarters of anthropogenic nitrous oxide emissions come from within the farm gate. [71]

Livestock Emissions

Roughly 15% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases come from livestock. [72]

Cattle are the main source of global livestock emissions (65%–77%). [73]
In 2018, enteric fermentation (part of the digestive process of ruminant animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and buffalo) was responsible for 2.1 Gt CO2-eq of methane emissions—the largest component of farm-gate emissions and roughly 4% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases. [74]
In 2018, livestock manure was responsible for 1.0 Gt CO2-eq of nitrous oxide emissions—roughly 2% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Crop Emissions

Fertilizers, rice paddies and on-farm energy use are each significant emissions sources.

In 2018, synthetic fertilizers were responsible for 0.7 Gt CO2-eq of nitrous oxide emissions—roughly 1.4% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases. [75]
In 2018, rice cultivation was responsible for 0.5 Gt CO2-eq of methane emissions—roughly 1% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases. [76]
In 2018, on-farm energy use contributed approximately 1.0 Gt CO2-eq of emissions, representing about 2% of global emissions. [77]

Dietary Choices

Dietary choices play a large role in determining the amount of heat-trapping gases emitted from the food system.

In general, animal-based food products are associated with higher emissions than plant-based foods. [78]
Beef generates the highest emissions of heat-trapping gases per kilogram (kg) of commodity produced, outpacing milk, pork, eggs and all crops. [79]
Beef: 60 kg CO2-eq per kg
Lamb and mutton: 24 kg CO2-eq per kg
Cheese: 21 kg CO2-eq per kg
In general, CO2-equivalent emissions from crop products are 10–50 times lower than most animal products, per kg of product. [81]
In general, animal products produce more CO2 per unit of protein as well. The emissions per 100 grams of protein for several popular food sources are listed below: [82]
Beef: 49.9 kg CO2-eq
Cheese: 19.8 kg CO2-eq
Poultry: 5.7 kg CO2-eq
Eggs: 4.2 kg CO2-eq
Grains: 2.7 kg CO2-eq
Soybeans: 2.0 kg CO2-eq
Nuts: 0.26 kg CO2-eq

Post-Production Emissions

Roughly 45% of total energy use by the food sector is attributable to food processing and distribution. [83]

Refrigeration

Nearly 40% of all food that is produced requires refrigeration. [84]
The food sector cold chain is responsible for almost 2% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. [85]

Food transportation is responsible for roughly 6% of all food system emissions globally. (In the United States, the figure is 11%.) [86]

About 60% of the miles that food products travel globally are via water. [87]
Relatively little food is transported by air freight. However, perishable foods that are shipped internationally by air have a carbon footprint between 5 times and 20 times more than if they were transported by road and rail transport, respectively.
Domestic food transport alone contributed about 0.5 Gt CO2-eq emissions in 2018, representing about 1% of global emissions. [88]

In developing countries, cooking often utilizes traditional low-efficiency stoves, which generate significant negative impacts on both climate and health. [89]

Solid-fuel cooking in developing countries is associated with greenhouse gas emissions of 0.5–1.2 Gt CO2-eq per year, representing roughly 1.5%–3% of total anthropogenic emissions. [90] This figure does not include emissions associated with cooking using electricity and LPG—which characterizes much of the cooking in developed countries—or renewable sources such as biogas and solar.
Although both electric and gas cookstoves generate fewer emissions than solid-fuel cookstoves, there are still significant differences between the two. For instance, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with cooking with a gas stove can be roughly 6 times higher than with an electric stove. [91]

Food Loss, Waste and Disposal

Per capita rates of food loss and waste have been rising globally, and the emissions associated with food loss and waste are accelerating in parallel.

Over 10% of the world’s total energy consumption is used to create food products that are never consumed, and roughly 8% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions result from producing, shipping, storing and processing food that is lost or wasted. [92]
The methane generated from solid food waste in landfills is responsible for roughly 2% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. [93]

4. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON FOOD SYSTEMS

Impact on crop yields.

The buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere suppresses global average crop yields. This is due to the effects of high temperatures on growing periods and critical growth stages, more severe droughts and storms, the spread of pests, and other factors. [94]

Between 1981 and 2010, climate change lowered global average yields of maize by 4.1%, wheat by 1.8% and soybeans by 4.5% as compared to what yields would have been without climate change. [95]
Climate change may lead to crop yield increases in some temperate regions in the near term, in part because greater CO2 concentrations lead to enhanced photosynthesis in some crops (the CO2 fertilization effect). [96] However, in the longer term, all agricultural regions will suffer. [97]
Climate change is projected to have the most dramatic negative impacts on crop yields in the tropics and subtropics, where hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers live and work. [98]
The majority of crop models show declining global crop yield over the 21st century at a 2°C (3.6°F) increase in global warming, with direct yield losses occurring in some crops in the near term and higher yield losses in almost all crops likely to occur in the second half of the century. [99]

Impact on Nutritional Content and Health

Increasing concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere have negative impacts on the nutritional quality of globally important crops.

Decreases in protein content and micronutrients have been found for crops grown under high CO2 conditions. [100]

Such changes could have a negative impact on global health, as an estimated two billion people already suffer from dietary deficiencies of zinc and iron. [101]

Figure 3: Estimated impact of elevated atmospheric CO2 on the nutritional content of rice and wheat

Impact on Food Security

Climate change is likely to increase malnutrition and lead to less healthy diets in lower- and middle-income countries. [102]

Subsistence farmers are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Many are located in the tropics, rely entirely on rainwater and have relatively little adaptive capacity. [103] Nearly two-thirds of the labor force living in extreme poverty work in agriculture. [104]
Climate change may have a severe impact on childhood nutrition in vulnerable populations. By one estimate, climate change could increase childhood stunting by 23% in sub-Saharan Africa and up to 62% in South Asia, after factoring in population growth, food price increases and the potential impacts of climate change on cereal yields. [105]
The climate risk for subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa is borne disproportionately by women. This is in part due to significant male out-migration from rural villages. [106]

5. MITIGATION AND ADAPTION STRATEGIES

Dozens of strategies can help reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases from the food system and improve the resilience of the food system to climate change. Governments, companies, NGOs and individuals can all contribute. Options with high potential for impact are listed below.

Reducing Emissions from the Food System

Strategies for reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases from the food system are often divided into two broad categories: supply side and demand side. Supply-side strategies focus on land use, agricultural production and food distribution. Demand-side strategies focus on food consumption and consumer choice. [107]

Supply-Side Strategies

Measurement and monitoring of the emissions impact of many of these strategies can be challenging. In addition, system effects must be considered before pursuing one of these strategies with the goal of reducing emissions. (Shorter food delivery supply chains can be counterproductive, for example, if food is grown in energy intensive greenhouses powered by fossil fuels.)

The potential for quick and cost-effective emissions reductions in this area is significant. The IPCC found with high confidence that roughly 3%–8% of global emissions of heat-trapping gases could be cut by 2030 with crop and livestock measures at costs in the range of $20–$100 t CO2-eq. [108]

Demand-Side Strategies

Improving resilience of the food system.

The food system often relies on long supply chains that are vulnerable to climate disruption at many points. Policies to improve the climate resilience of the food system focus on ensuring a stable food supply and sustainable farmer livelihoods, as well as improving food availability and access.

Policy Tools

Many policy tools are available to implement strategies such as the above. The choice of policy tools will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, depending on local circumstances. Such tools include public funds for research and development, tax incentives, direct payments, regulatory standards, and education through agricultural extension services. Policies that focus on energy use more broadly (such as fuel efficiency standards for vehicles or energy efficiency standards for refrigerators) will also reduce food system emissions. [109]

Policies that help reduce emissions from the food system or improve food system resilience can have important benefits in other areas. These include the following:

improving public health,
enhancing rural livelihoods,
empowering women and indigenous peoples,
promoting animal welfare, and
protecting biodiversity. [110]

Food Climate Partnership

The Food Climate Partnership is a joint effort of scholars at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), and New York University. The Food Climate Partnership works to address knowledge gaps, promote better policies and improve public understanding of issues related to the food system and climate change. We work closely with experts at the Statistics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to ensure that data on food systems are properly analyzed and communicated.

[1] Measured in CO2-equivalents. Francesco N. Tubiello et al., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Systems: Building the Evidence Base,” Environmental Research Letters 16, no. 6 (2021), https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e . See also Cynthia Rosenzweig et al., “Climate Change Responses Benefit from a Global Food System Approach,” Nature Food 1, no. 2 (2020), 94–97, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-0031-z .

[2] Michael A. Clark et al., “Global Food System Emissions Could Preclude Achieving the 1.5° and 2°C Climate Change Targets,” Science 370, no. 6517 (2020), 705–8, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6517/705 .

[3] C. Mbow et al., “Food Security,” in Climate Change and Land (IPCC, 2019), https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/ .

[4] Max Roser, “Employment in Agriculture,” Our World in Data, 2013, https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture .

[5] Patricia Allen and Carolyn Sachs, “Women and Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food,” in Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World, eds. Psyche Williams Forson and Carole Counihan (Routledge, 2012), 23–40.

[6] Cynthia Rosenzweig et al., “Finding and Fixing Food System Emissions: The Double Helix of Science and Policy,” Environmental Research Letters 16, no. 6 (2021), https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0134 .

[7] Food products that never enter into commerce, such as crops consumed by those who grow them, are not included in this estimate. Martein Van Nieuwkoop , “Do the Costs of the Global Food System Outweigh Its Monetary Value?” World Bank Blogs, June 17, 2019, https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/do-costs-global-food-system-outweigh-… .

[8] Mbow et al., “Food Security.”

[9] World Bank, “Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, value added (% of GDP),” 2020, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS .

[10] World Bank, “Merchandise Exports (Current US$),” 2020 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX.VAL.MRCH.CD.WT; World Bank, “Food Exports (% of Merchandise Exports),” 2020, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX.VAL.FOOD.ZS.UN .

[11] FAOSTAT, “Land Cover,” FAO, last modified September 10, 2020, http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/LC . See also Hannah Ritchie, “Half of the World’s Habitable Land Is Used for Agriculture,” Our World in Data, November 11, 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture .

[12] FAOSTAT, “Land Use Indicators,” FAO, last modified September 10, 2020, http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/EL .

[13] Paolo D’Odorico, Lorenzo Rosa, Abinash Bhattachan, and Gregory S. Okin, “Desertification and Land Degradation,” in Dryland Ecohydrology, eds. Paolo D’Odorico, Amilcare Porporato, and Christiane Wilkinson Runyan (Springer, 2019), 573–602, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23269-6_21 .

[14] FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Main Report (Rome: FAO, 2020), https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9825enhttps://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1108; Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “Deforestation and Forest Loss,” Our World in Data, accessed March 8, 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation .

[15] FAO, “Energy-Smart” Food for People and Climate (Rome: FAO, 2011), http://www.fao.org/3/i2454e/i2454e00.pdf .

[16] Alia Ladha-Sabur, Serafim Bakalis, Peter J. Fryer, and Estefania Lopez-Quiroga, “Mapping Energy Consumption in Food Manufacturing,” Trends in Food Science & Technology 86 (2019), 270–80, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2019.02.034 .

[17] FAO, “Energy-Smart” Food.

[18] FAOSTAT, “Food Supply – Crops Primary Equivalent,” FAO, last modified February 5, 2018, http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/CC .

[20] Walter Fraanje and Tara Garnett, “Soy: Food, Feed, and Land Use Change,” Food Climate Research Network, University of Oxford, January 30, 2020; M. Shahbandeh, “Soybean production worldwide 2012/13–2019/20, by country,” Statista, January 26, 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/263926/soybean-production-in-selected-countries-since-1980/#statisticContainer .

[21] FAOSTAT, “New Food Balances,” FAO, last modified April 14, 2021, http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS .

[23] Tom Capehart and Susan Proper, “Corn is America’s Largest Crop in 2019,” US Department of Agriculture Blog, August 1, 2019, https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/07/29/corn-americas-largest-crop-2019 .

[24] Fraanje and Garnett, “Soy”; Shahbandeh, “Soybean production worldwide.”

[25] FAOSTAT, “Live Animals,” FAO, last updated March 18, 2021, http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QA .

[26] FAOSTAT, “New Food Balances”; UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division, “World Population Prospects 2019,” accessed December 22, 2020, https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/ .

[27] UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Population Prospects.”

[28] FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020: Sustainability in Action (Rome: FAO, 2020), http://www.fao.org/3/ca9229en/online/ca9229en.html .

[31] IEA, “SDG7: Data and Projections,” 2020, https://www.iea.org/reports/sdg7-data-and-projections/access-to-clean-cooking .

[34] Katherine L. Dickinson et al., “Research on Emissions, Air Quality, Climate, and Cooking Technologies in Northern Ghana (REACCTING): Study Rationale and Protocol,” BMC Public Health 15, no. 126 (February 2015), https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1414-1 .

[35] Hannah Ritchie, David S. Reay, and Peter Higgins, “Beyond Calories: A Holistic Assessment of the Global Food System,” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 2 (2018), doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2018.00057.

[36] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020: Transforming Food Systems for Affordable Healthy Diets (Rome: FAO, 2020), http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/ca9692en .

[38] WHO, “Obesity and Overweight,” last modified June 9, 2021, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweighthttps://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diabetes .

[39] Walter Willett et al., “Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems,” The Lancet 393, no. 10170 (February 2019), 447–92, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obesity/symptoms-causes/s… Corinna Hawkes, Jody Harris, and Stuart Gillespie, “Changing Diets: Urbanization and the Nutrition Transition,” in 2017 Global Food Policy Report (International Food Policy Research Institute, 2017), 34–41, https://ideas.repec.org/h/fpr/ifpric/9780896292529-04.html .

[40] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (Rome: FAO, 2018), http://www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf .

[41] FAO, State of Food Security in 2020; HLPE and Committee on World Food Security, Impacts of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition: Developing Effective Policy Responses to Address the Hunger and Malnutrition Pandemic (Rome: FAO, September 2020), http://www.fao.org/3/cb1000en/cb1000en.pdfhttps://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000510; Lukas Schwingshackl et al., “Food Groups and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies,” European Journal of Epidemiology 32 (May 2017), 363–75, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-017-0246-yhttps://doi.org/10.3945/an.117.017178 .

[42] Jenny Gustavsson, Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert Otterdijk, and Alexandre Meybeck, Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes, and Prevention (Rome: FAO, 2011), http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/suistainability/pdf/Global_Food_Losses_and_Food_Waste.pdf .

[43] FAO, Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources (Rome: FAO, 2013), http://www.fao.org/3/i3347e/i3347e.pdf .

[44] FAO, “Sustainable Development Goals: Indicator 12.3.1—Global Food Loss and Waste,” 2020, http://www.fao.org/sustainable-development-goals/indicators/12.3.1/en/ .

[45] Silpa Kaza, Lisa Yao, Perinaz Bhada-Tata, and Frank Van Woerden, What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/30317; Deborah M. Bartram and Sirintornthep Towprayoon, “Waste,” in 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 5, eds. E. Calvo Buendia et al. (Switzerland: IPCC, 2019), https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2019rf/vol5.html .

[46] FAO, The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges (Rome: FAO, 2017), http://www.fao.org/3/i6583e/i6583e.pdf .

[47] Abhishek Chaudhary, Stephan Pfister, and Stefanie Hellweg, “Spatially Explicit Analysis of Biodiversity Loss Due to Global Agriculture, Pasture and Forest Land Use from a Producer and Consumer Perspective,” Environmental Science & Technology 50, no. 7 (February 2016), 3928–36, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5b06153; IPBES, Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Summary for Policymakers (Bonn: IPBES Secretariat, 2019), 28, https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/inline/files/ipbes_global_assessme… FAO, State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture, eds. J. Bélanger and D. Pilling (Rome: FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture Assessments, 2019), http://www.fao.org/3/CA3129EN/ca3129en.pdf .

[48] Lucas A. Garibaldi et al., “Farming Approaches for Greater Biodiversity, Livelihoods, and Food Security,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 32, no. 1 (January 2017, 68–80, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2016.10.001 .

[49] Chaudhary, “Spatially Explicit Analysis,” 3928–36.

[50] Valérie Masson-Delmotte et al, ”Information from Paleoclimate Record,” in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis—Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, eds., T.F. Stocker et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 385, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/information-from-paleoclimate-archives/https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/7/graphic-carbon-dioxide-hits… IPCC Working Group I, ”Summary for Policymakers,” in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis—Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, eds. T.F. Stocker et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf .

[51] IPCC Working Group I, “Summary for Policymakers.”

[53] NASA, “Climate Change: How Do We Know?” https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ .

[54] NASA, “2020 Tied for Warmest Year on Record, NASA Analysis Shows,” January 14, 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/2020-tied-for-warmest-year-on-record-nasa-analysis-shows .

[55] IPCC Working Group III, “Summary for Policymakers,” In Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change—Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCCC, eds. O. Edenhofer et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 6, https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf .

[56] Ibid, 9.

[58] IPCC Working Group I, “Summary for Policymakers.”

[59] Michael Goss et al., “Climate Change Is Increasing the Likelihood of Extreme Autumn Wildfire Conditions across California,” Environmental Research Letters 15, no. 9 (August 2020), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab83a7 .

[60] “Paris Agreement,” Article 2.1(a), conclusion date: December 12, 2015, registration no. I-54113, 3, https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf .

[61] Climate Action Tracker, “Temperatures,” accessed December 22, 2020, https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ .

[62] IPCC Working Group II, “Summary for Policymakers,” in Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, eds. C.B. Field et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf .

[63] IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers,” in Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report, eds. V. Masson-Delmotte et al. (in press, 2018), https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15_SPM_version_report_HR.pdf .

[64] Nick Watts et al., “The 2020 Report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: Responding to Converging Crises,” The Lancet 397, no. 10269 (January 2021), 129–70, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736 (20)32290-X; Xiaoxu Wu, Yongmei Lu, Sen Zhou, Lifan Chen, and Bing Xu, “Impact of Climate Change on Human Infectious Diseases: Empirical Evidence and Human Adaptation,” Environment International 86 (January 2016), 14–23, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2015.09.007 .

[65] Mbow et al., “Food Security.”

[66] M. Crippa et al., “Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions,” Nature Food 2 (March 2021), 198–209, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9 .

[67] Tubiello et al., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Systems.”

[68] Ibid.; Francesco N. Tubiello, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Due to Agriculture,” in Encyclopedia of Food Security and Sustainability, eds. Pasquale Ferranti, Elliot M. Berry, and Jock R. Anderson (Elsevier, 2019), 196–205, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100596-5.21996-3; Crippa et al., “Food Systems Are Responsible.”

[69] Sarah Carter et al., “Agriculture-Driven Deforestation in the Tropics from 1990–2015: Emissions, Trends and Uncertainties,” Environmental Research Letters 13, no. 1 (December 2017), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ea4 .

[70] FAO, “Emissions Due to Agriculture: Global, Regional and Country Trends 2000–2018,” FAOSTAT Analytical Brief Series, 2020, accessed December 22, 2020, http://www.fao.org/3/cb3808en/cb3808en.pdf .

[71] Tubiello, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Due to Agriculture.”

[72] P.J. Gerber et al., Tackling Climate Change through Livestock: A Global Assessment of Emissions and Mitigation Opportunities (Rome: FAO, 2013), http://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf; FAO, “GLEAM 2.0 2018 Update,” 2018, http://www.fao.org/gleam/resources/en/ .

[73] Mbow et al., “Food Security.”

[74] FAO, “Emissions Due to Agriculture.”

[77] Tubiello et al., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Systems.”

[78] H. Charles J. Godfray et al., “Meat Consumption, Health, and the Environment,” Science 361, no. 6399 (July 2018), https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6399/eaam5324 .

[79] IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds. R. K. Pachauri and L. A. Meyer (Geneva: IPCC, 2014), 151, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ .

[80] Hannah Ritchie, “You Want to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Your Food? Focus on What You Eat, Not Whether Your Food Is Local,” Our World in Data, January 24, 2020, accessed November 9, 2020, https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local; J. Poore and T. Nemecek, “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts through Producers and Consumers,” Science 360, no. 6392 (June 2018), 987–92, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 .

[81] Poore and Nemecek, “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts.”

[82] “Greenhouse Gas Emissions per 100 Grams of Protein,” Our World in Data, accessed February 11, 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore; Poore and Nemecek, “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts.”

[83] Ladha-Sabur, Bakalis, Fryer, and Lopez-Quiroga, “Mapping energy consumption.”

[84] S. J. James and C. James, “The Food Cold-Chain and Climate Change,” Food Research International 43, no. 7 (August 2010), 1944–56, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2010.02.001 .

[85] Crippa et al., “Food Systems Are Responsible,” note 38.

[86] Poore and Nemecek, “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts”; Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews, “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States,” Environmental Science & Technology 42, no. 10 (2008), 3508–13, https://doi.org/10.1021/es702969fhttps://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food .

[87] Ritchie and Roser, “Environmental Impacts of Food Production.”

[88] Tubiello et al., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food Systems.”

[89] Paul Wilkinson et al., “Public Health Benefits of Strategies to Reduce Greenhouse-Gas Emissions: Household Energy,” The Lancet 374, no. 9705 (December 2009), 1917–29, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736 (09)61713-X; Dickinson, “Research on Emissions.”

[90] Venkata Ramana Putti, Michael Tsan, Sumi Mehta, and Srilata Kammila, The State of the Global Clean and Improved Cooking Sector (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/21878/96499.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y .

[91] Hyunji Im and Yunsoung Kim, “The Electrification of Cooking Methods in Korea—Impact on Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” Energies 13, no. 3 (2020), 680, https://doi.org/10.3390/en13030680 .

[92] FAO, Future of Food; Nadia Scialabba, “Food Wastage Footprint and Climate Change,” FAO, 2015, http://www.fao.org/3/bb144e/bb144e.pdf .

[93] 28 megatonnes of CH4 from solid food waste (Tubiello et al., “Greenhouse gas emissions from food systems”) is 8% of the 359 megatonnes of total anthropogenic CH4, as seen in Marielle Saunois et al., “The Global Methane Budget 2000–2017,” Earth System Science Data 12, no. 3 (July 2020), https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1561-2020 .

[94] Mbow et al., “Food Security.”

[95] Toshichika Iizumi et al., “Crop Production Losses Associated with Anthropogenic Climate Change for 1981–2010 Compared with Preindustrial Levels,” International Journal of Climatology 38, no. 14 (August 2018), 5405–17, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5818 .

[96] See, e.g., Tao et al., “Responses of Wheat Growth and Yield to Climate Change in Different Climate Zones of China, 1981–2009,” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 189–190 (June 2014), 91–104, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2014.01.013 , cited in Mbow et al., “Food Security,” 452.

[97] A. J. Challinor et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Crop Yield under Climate Change and Adaptation,” Nature Climate Change 4 (April 2014), 287–91, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2153 .

[98] Samuel Levis, Andrew Badger, Beth Drewniak, Cynthia Nevison, and Xiaolin Ren, “CLMcrop Yields and Water Requirements: Avoided Impacts by Choosing RCP 4.5 over 8.5,” Climatic Change 146 (February 2018), 501–15,

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-016-1654-9https://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/508 .

[99] Challinor et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Crop Yield.”

[100] Samuel Myers et al., “Increasing CO2 Threatens Human Nutrition,” Nature 510 (June 2014), 139–42, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13179 .

[101] Ibid.

[102] Mbow et al., “Food Security.”

[103] John F. Morton, “The Impact of Climate Change on Smallholder and Subsistence Agriculture,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104, no. 50 (December 2007), 19680–85, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701855104 .

[104] Andrés Castañeda et al., “A New Profile of the Global Poor,” World Development 101 (January 2018), 250–67, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.08.002 .

[105] Simon J. Lloyd, R. Sari Kovats, and Zaid Chalabi, “Climate Change, Crop Yields, and Undernutrition: Development of a Model to Quantify the Impact of Climate Scenarios on Child Undernutrition,” Environmental Health Perspectives 119, no. 12 (December 2011), 1817–23, https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1003311 .

[106] Ibid; SOFA Team and Cheryl Doss, “The Role of Women in Agriculture,” FAO ESA Working Paper 11-02, March 2011, http://www.fao.org/3/am307e/am307e00.pdf .

[107] Mbow et al., “Food Security.”

[108] Ibid. On February 26, 2021, the Biden administration set $51 as an interim estimate of the social costs imposed by a ton of CO2 emissions, pending a further and more detailed scientific review; Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis, “Biden is hiking the cost of carbon,” Washington Post, February 26, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/02/26/biden-cost-climate-change/ .

[109] Margot Hurlbert et al., “Risk Management and Decision Making in Relation to Sustainable Development,” in Climate Change and Land, eds. P.R. Shuka et al. (in press, 2019), 695–718, https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/10_Chapter-7_V2.pdf .

[110] Ibid.

[111] Emi Suzuki, “World’s Population Will Continue to Grow and Will Reach Nearly 10 Billion by 2050,” World Bank Blogs, July 8, 2019, https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/worlds-population-will-continue-grow-and-will-reach-nearly-10-billion-2050 .

[112] Phillip Baker and Sharon Friel, “Food Systems Transformations, Ultra-Processed Food Markets and the Nutrition Transition in Asia,” Globalization and Health 12 (December 2016), 80, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-016-0223-3 .

[113] A. Steensland, 2020 Global Agricultural Productivity Report: Productivity in a time of pandemics, ed. T. Thompson (Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 2020).

[114] Dietrich Knorr, Chor San Heng Khoo, and Mary Ann Augustin, “Food for an Urban Planet: Challenges and Research Opportunities,” Frontiers in Nutrition 4, no. 73 (January 2018), https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2017.00073 .

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Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

Climate Change and Food Systems

Addressing the Diet-Climate Connection

What we eat plays a significant role in climate change. In alignment with the United Nations’ annual climate change Conference of Parties (COP23) and the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, which in 2017 is focused on “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Climate Changes Health ,” the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) has highlighted resources regarding ways that everyone can address climate change – at the table.

How does the food system exacerbate climate change?

By 2050, food production alone is expected to nearly exhaust the 2° C emissions budget

World leaders have agreed on the goal of keeping average global temperature rise within 2° C above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the most catastrophic climate change scenarios. Even if this goal is met, climate change is projected to have significant global impacts, many of which will likely continue for centuries. [1]

Food system activities, including producing, transporting and disposing of food, generate up to 30% of total global GHG emissions. [9],[10] Of these sources, livestock production is the largest, accounting for an estimated 14.5% of global GHG emissions from human activities, according to the United Nations. [11] Meat and dairy from ruminant animals, such as cattle and goats, are particularly emissions-intensive. [12]

Globally about 30% of the food supply is never eaten. [13] If all the world’s food losses and waste were represented as a country, that “country” would be the third highest GHG emitter, after China and the U.S. [14] Discarding food is akin to discarding all the embodied GHG emissions involved in its production, processing, transportation, cold storage, and preparation. 14 Additionally, when food decomposes in landfills, it generates significant quantities of methane, a GHG which is up to 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. [15]

How can we mitigate climate change?

Dramatic reductions in meat and dairy consumption and wasted food, alongside reductions in GHG emissions from energy use, transportation, and other sources, are crucial for avoiding the most catastrophic climate change scenarios.

1) Cut wasted food

2) Eat healthy diets – with less meat and dairy

What about grass-fed ? Some advocates claim that by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, grazing livestock can solve climate change. While grass-fed or pasture-raised animal products may offer many health, ecological, and animal welfare benefits compared to conventional animal products, they do not offer significant climate benefits. Under specific soil, climate, and animal density conditions, well-managed livestock grazing may sequester carbon, but this potential is small, time-limited, reversible, and substantially outweighed by the GHG emissions generated by grazing systems. [21]

What about local/regional ? Eating local or regional foods may be a worthwhile practice for social and economic values, but should not be pursued as a major climate mitigation strategy. While choosing local sources for some types of foods can reduce GHG footprints (e.g., fresh berries or fish that would otherwise be shipped on planes), in other cases, local foods that require significant energy inputs to grow during the winter (e.g., tomatoes or lettuce grown in heated greenhouses) can have significant GHG footprints. When eating local, individuals and institutions should choose in-season foods, which are typically produced and transported with a lower climate impact.

Ultimately, changing the types of foods people eat and how those foods are produced is better for the climate than reducing the distances foods travel. [22] One study from the United Kingdom estimated that avoiding air-freighted and hothouse-grown foods could reduce dietary GHG emissions by 5%—compared with a 35% reduction from eliminating meat from diets. [23] Another study from the U.S. found that avoiding red meat and dairy one day a week reduces GHG emissions more than eating locally every day. 22

3) Work for broader food system change

Shifting diets and reducing wasted food on an international scale will require more than just educating consumers. National and subnational policies that address dietary recommendations [24] , agricultural subsidies, and procurement practices [25] will also need to support such transitions. [26]

What is the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future doing?

Developed a report on Government plans to address wasted food (2017)
Studied US consumer attitudes and behaviors related to wasted food (2015)
Modeling country-specific environmental impacts of wasted food interventions (in progress)
Modeling the climate and water footprints of 11 diets specific to 140 countries (in progress)
Organized and convened “Less Meat, Less Heat: A Workshop on Civil Society Engagement at COP23 and Beyond” workshop in April 2017
Co-leading the Food and Climate Coalition, a group of NGOs and academics who research and advocate for a more sustainable global food system
Providing ongoing technical assistance to the Meatless Monday Campaign
Guiding and evaluating efforts to implement meat reduction initiatives in institutional food service settings, with resources such as this report and accompanying toolkit on Meatless Monday best practices in food service operations
Supported the inclusion of sustainability considerations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020, as recommended by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Food System Primer on food and climate change
Lesson plan for high school teachers on food and climate change
Addressing Food Waste Through Governmental Plans, Moving up the Food Recovery Hierarchy
Tackling Resilience through Food Policy Councils (accompanying blog post )
Less Meat, Less Heat: The Importance of Changing Diets for Climate Mitigation
Sustainable Diets for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet . United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition. 2017.
Redefining Protein: Adjusting Diets to Protect Public Health and Conserve Resources . Health Care Without Harm. 2017.
Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future . World Resources Institute. 2016.
The Importance of Reducing Animal Product Consumption and Wasted Food in Mitigating Catastrophic Climate Change . Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. 2015.
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[7] Jones, A. D., Hoey, L., Blesh, J., Miller, L., Green, A., & Shapiro, L. F. (2016). A systematic review of the measurement of sustainable diets. Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal , 7 (4), 641-664.

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[17] United States Department of Agriculture (2015). Press release: USDA and EPA join private sector charitable organizations to set nation’s first food waste reduction goals. Retrieved from: https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2015/09/16/usda-and-epa-join-private-sector-charitable-organizations-set

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How green is your ice-cream? Food groups race to cut emissions

An employee of Ben & Jerry's scoops ice cream into a cone outside Union Station in Washington on June 18, 2013. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

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Eating a mouthful of Magnum, Cornetto or Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, the typical consumer has little concern for the precise temperature at which it has been transported from the factory.

But behind the scenes, a team at the brands’ owner Unilever, the world’s largest ice-cream maker, has been working to push that temperature higher — the goal being to move from shipping at -18C to shipping at -12C.

Together with a switch to green refrigerants and better insulation in ice-cream freezers, the shift forms part of an effort by one of the world’s largest consumer goods groups to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Marc Engel, chief supply chain officer at Unilever, says: “The difference between -18C and -12C is very significant, but it’s easier in the developed than in the developing world. If you have an ice-cream cabinet out in the sun at 35 degrees, it’s more difficult to control [the temperature].”

Covid has many people wobbling about ‘do we have the bandwidth?’

Unilever has just tightened its overall environmental goals, announcing that it will pursue net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2039 and invest €1bn in a new 10-year climate and nature fund. The new targets were unveiled in June despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which left Unilever with zero sales growth in the first quarter.

Ice-cream suffered the biggest drop in volumes of any part of Unilever’s food division. But Mr Engel says it is “very important just at this moment in time to reaffirm our commitment [to sustainability]”. “Covid has many people wobbling about ‘do we have the bandwidth?’,” he adds.

Whose emissions?

The challenge for Unilever’s ice-cream brands is to cut emissions in the “cold chain” from manufacture to the consumer without compromising the taste or quality on which their reputation depends.

It is one of many such puzzles facing multinational foodmakers as they seek to reduce their environmental impact. Food accounts for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Food Climate Research Network .

Ice-cream freezers are one part of its environmental footprint that Unilever can directly control. The same is not true of most emissions attributable to food manufacturers, which occur further back in the supply chain.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Newscast/Shutterstock (8521776hh) Magnum,ice cream Stock, Various - 11 Mar 2016

“One of the important things with consumer goods companies is that 90 per cent of their emissions lie outside their own processes,” says Carole Ferguson, head of investor research at CDP, a non-profit organisation which runs an environmental disclosure system used by investors and other stakeholders.

In the case of foodmakers, so-called scope 3 emissions, which occur in a company’s value chain, far outweigh scope 1 emissions — made directly by the company itself — and scope 2 emissions, from the energy it buys and uses.

The distinction means that food and consumer goods companies have so far received less climate-related scrutiny than industrial and energy groups, with investors less conscious of their exposure to climate-related risk. But that is changing.

Cutting scope 3 emissions requires engagement with the farmers growing the raw materials for food, along with efforts to combat deforestation and methane emissions from cattle.

Progress here has been limited. Greenpeace, the climate campaign group, noted that Unilever’s latest announcement pushed back its target to achieve a deforestation-free supply chain from 2020 to 2023. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, accused the group of having a “business model . . . based on environmental destruction”.

Yet Unilever scores better than many rival consumer goods groups for exposure to climate risks, according to CDP. It tops the non-governmental organisation’s table for household and personal goods companies, beating rivals such as Germany’s Henkel.

Among food companies — not including Unilever, as its household and personal goods divisions are a larger part of its business — Danone and Nestlé top the table for preparedness for the low-carbon transition, with Mondelez and Kraft Heinz at the bottom.

Down on the farm

In part, the scores depend on the nature of the products each company makes. Nestlé and Kraft Heinz are both weighed down by a focus on meat and dairy products, CDP says. Yet a close engagement with suppliers can help to compensate.

Danone, founded as a yoghurt maker and still heavily invested in dairy, “is really excellent when you look at their scope 3 emissions . . . Danone actually works with all their farmers and milk and dairy groups to track back exactly where their products come from,” says CDP’s Ms Ferguson.

With consumer goods companies, 90 per cent of their emissions lie outside their own processes

Eric Soubeiran, vice-president for nature and water cycle at Danone, says the group wants to boost its plant-based products. But he rejects the suggestion that the group could reduce its climate footprint by cutting exposure to dairy.

“I think it is very important to choose the model of agriculture we want to be in . . . By saying in Danone that we want to transition to regenerative agriculture, we make a clear choice,” he says. Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that focuses on encouraging a healthy ecosystem.

Danone is trying to make greater use of local inputs in many of its locations — by sourcing milk from farms close to its factories, for example. It is also working with farmers to boost biodiversity.

As for Unilever, it is following a similar strategy. Like Danone, it does not plan to cut emissions by quitting energy-intensive areas such as ice-cream. Instead, it too has been strengthening connections with farms.

Some 100 people now work in agronomy departments at Unilever, dealing with farmers who would previously have heard little from the multinationals whose products emerge several steps down the supply chain.

These conversations cover land management techniques and technology that can reduce emissions, yet also have the potential to boost yields in the long term — a point that Mr Engel stresses.

“Sustainability isn’t a cost,” he says. “It is an investment.”

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Might Feedlots Be the Sustainable Option?

The limited carbon sequestration potential of cattle grazing.

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A new report provides further evidence that cattle grazing, even when purportedly low-impact practices are used, might not be carbon-neutral or reduce net greenhouse gas emissions. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking: experts have long known that cattle have disproportionately large environmental impacts, especially when they spend their entire lives on pasture. This report adds to our understanding by calculating that at a global scale, grazing systems cannot sequester more carbon than is produced over the life of the cattle. What it doesn’t do, however, is consider how the environmental impacts of different production systems square up.

The new research, published by the Food Climate Research Network, finds that under the right conditions, best-practice cattle grazing can sequester more carbon in the soil than is emitted over the life cycle of the production system. But these cases are rare and cannot be scaled up across much of the world’s grazing land. This comes in stark contrast to the views of advocates like Allan Savory, who has claimed that so-called “carbon grazing” could sequester not only all the carbon emitted by livestock, but all the carbon emitted across all sectors of the economy.

The authors of this work, and many of the journalists covering it , have used its findings to echo a long-heralded environmental imperative: we should all eat less beef .

Abstaining from beef or eating lower on the food chain has obvious environmental upsides. But few in this debate have been willing to seriously consider another uncomfortable conclusion: that beef from feedlot cattle might have a lower carbon footprint than beef from cattle that have spent their entire lives on pasture.

In a recent paper in Science of the Total Environment , we show that intensive systems where cattle spend their last few months in feedlots typically involve lower land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental impacts per unit of meat than systems where cattle spend their whole lives on pasture.

The new report doesn’t compare these systems directly, but highlights the need to more carefully assess the environmental impacts of pasture and feedlots.

Some argue that although raising cattle entirely on pasture may emit more methane and other greenhouse gases than feedlot cattle, the additional carbon sequestration makes the former more climate-friendly. But we have to remember that even cattle finished in feedlots spend most of their lives on pasture, so any benefits of soil carbon sequestration accrue to both systems. The only source of environmental impacts not accounted for in our recent paper is the additional pasture land needed for grass-finished cattle. For this to offset the lower impacts of finishing cattle in feedlots, the additional pasture would need to have substantially higher rates of carbon sequestration than the land use it replaces.

While the new report does not settle the question, its findings imply that this is unlikely to be true in many situations. Instead, the authors warn that “significant expansion [of grazing] would cause catastrophic land use change and other environmental damage.”

Given wide differences in feedlots and grazing across countries, it’s almost inevitable that feedlots will be the climate-smart choice in some circumstances just as pasture will be in others. At Breakthrough, we’re currently looking into the best empirical research on lifecycle greenhouse impacts from beef production, including under what circumstances finishing cattle in feedlots versus pasture has the lowest impacts. It’s mighty complex, and worth a healthy dose of care and nuance.

But ultimately, an evidence-based look of this terrain demands that we reconsider what we have cast as the traditional environmental villains. While we’re giving people the uncomfortable advice to eat less beef, we should be honest about the uncomfortable evidence in favor of feedlots.

Dan Blaustein-Rejto

Dan Blaustein-Rejto is the Director of the Food and Agriculture program at Breakthrough.

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Food sustainability: problems, perspectives and solutions

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1 Food Climate Research Network, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. [email protected]
PMID: 23336559
DOI: 10.1017/S0029665112002947

The global food system makes a significant contribution to climate changing greenhouse gas emissions with all stages in the supply chain, from agricultural production through processing, distribution, retailing, home food preparation and waste, playing a part. It also gives rise to other major environmental impacts, including biodiversity loss and water extraction and pollution. Policy makers are increasingly aware of the need to address these concerns, but at the same time they are faced with a growing burden of food security and nutrition-related problems, and tasked with ensuring that there is enough food to meet the needs of a growing global population. In short, more people need to be fed better, with less environmental impact. How might this be achieved? Broadly, three main 'takes' or perspectives, on the issues and their interactions, appear to be emerging. Depending on one's view point, the problem can be conceptualised as a production challenge, in which case there is a need to change how food is produced by improving the unit efficiency of food production; a consumption challenge, which requires changes to the dietary drivers that determine food production; or a socio-economic challenge, which requires changes in how the food system is governed. This paper considers these perspectives in turn, their implications for nutrition and climate change, and their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, an argument is made for a reorientation of policy thinking which uses the insights provided by all three perspectives, rather than, as is the situation today, privileging one over the other.

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Why eating grass-fed beef isn’t going to help fight climate change

Food Climate Research Network Leader, University of Oxford

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Tara Garnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Oxford provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Beef gets a bad press, environmentally speaking. We’re bombarded with reports highlighting its high carbon footprint accompanied by images of belching cows and devastated rainforests .

But is all beef bad? Some argue that beef from grass-fed cows has higher welfare, nutrition and other credentials than meat from animals that eat intensively farmed, high-protein feeds. Most cattle get a mixture of such feeds and grass. Many also argue that purely grass-fed cows not only produce less emissions than those fed soy or grain, but that they can even help absorb carbon from the atmosphere (grass uses up carbon from the air via photosynthesis). My colleagues and I have produced a new report for the Food Climate Research Network that shows the evidence suggests otherwise.

Most studies conclude that if you look at the amount of land used and greenhouse gas emissions produced per kilogram of meat, pasture-based cattle actually have a greater climate impact than animals fed grains and soy. This is because commercial feeds tend to be less fibrous than grass, and so cows that eat them produce less methane (through belching and flatulence), which is a potent greenhouse gas. Animals in more intensive, grain-fed systems systems also reach slaughter weight faster than grass-fed animals do, so emissions over the animal’s entire lifetime are lower.

However, some academics and many within the alternative farming movement challenge these conclusions. They say that these studies only factor in one side of the greenhouse gas emissions equation: the animals’ emissions. Inspired by ideas such as ecologist and farmer Allan Savory’s principles of “holistic grazing management”, they argue that if you graze cattle in the right way, their nibbling and trampling actions can actually stimulate the grass to put down deep roots and actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. This is plausible under certain circumstances, which is why we considered it in our report.

Some even argue that the amount of carbon removed by this type of grazing can actually exceed the cattle’s total emissions. In other words, they should be seen as an essential part of the climate solution.

Advocates of grass-fed cows also point out that methane gets broken down in the atmosphere after about 12 years, so it’s only a temporary problem. These and other arguments are even leading to moves to award carbon credits to grazing initiatives.

The evidence

So are these claims justified? We decided to sift through the evidence to find out. We recognised that the grass-fed issue is about multiple social, ethical and environmental concerns but we decided to focus on just one concern: climate change. We asked one question: what is the net climate impact of grass-fed ruminants, taking into account all greenhouse gas emissions and removals?

We found that well-managed grazing in some contexts – the climate, soils and management regime all have to be right – can cause some carbon to be sequestered in soils. But, the maximum global potential (using generous assumptions) would offset only 20%-60% of emissions from grazing cattle, 4%-11% of total livestock emissions, and 0.6%-1.6% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, grazing livestock – even in a best-case scenario – are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock. Good grazing management cannot offset its own emissions, let alone those arising from other systems of animal production.

What’s more, soils being farmed using a new system of management, such as grazing, reach carbon equilibrium , where the carbon that flows into soils equal carbon flows out, within a few decades. This means that any benefits from grass-fed cows are time-limited, while the problems of methane and other gases continue for as long as the livestock remain on the land. Plus, a change in management or climate – or even a drought – can overturn any gains.

As for methane, the argument that its impact is temporary and so not important is flawed. While the warming effect of any given pulse of methane is temporary, the total warming impacts will continue for as long as the source of methane continues. Methane will be emitted and continue to warm the planet as long as cattle are still reared. The problem only disappears if ruminant production is abandoned.

How we use land is also changing, which poses new challenges. Grazing ruminants have historically driven deforestation and the carbon dioxide emissions associated with it. But today, demand for soy and grains to feed pigs, poultry, and intensively reared cattle poses a new threat. This drives the conversion of grassland to grow such grains and the release of carbon stored in it.

That said, ruminants are still implicated. Forests are still cut down while grasslands are being intensified to support more livestock farming. This means using fertilisers or planting legumes, which cause nitrous oxide emissions, on top of the methane the animals produce. In other words, whatever the system and animal type, rising animal production and consumption is driving damaging changes in land use and associated release of greenhouse gases.

The priority for now and coming years is to figure out the least bad environmental way of using land and other resources to feed ourselves and meet our other developmental goals. We need to question the common assumption that high levels of consumption in affluent countries, and rapidly rising demand in developing countries, are inevitable. The more that demand for meat increases, the harder it will be to tackle our climatic and other environmental challenges.

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Eating Grass-Fed Beef Isn’t as Climate-Friendly as You May Think

With the global population climbing, researchers wanted to know whether grazing could help rein in climate change. this is what they learned..

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Of the many terms attached to our burgers and steaks, “sustainable” and “grass-fed” often sit next to each other. But a new study finds that raising livestock on grassy pastures is far from sustainable and doesn’t have the climate benefits proponents have claimed.

“Can we eat our way out of the climate problem by eating more grass-fed beef?” Tara Garnett, of the Food Climate Research Network at Oxford University in the UK, and her colleagues asked. The answer, they found, is no.

Eating grass-fed beef doesn’t get climate-conscious carnivores off the hook.

Cattle and other ruminants have long been considered a major source of greenhouse gases, largely because of the methane they emit through belching and the carbon dioxide released when forests are cleared for grazing or growing feed.

But in recent years, researchers have found that cattle raised on pastures, munching on grasses and treading the ground underneath them, have the potential to sequester carbon in the soil. Some have made the argument that certain kinds of managed grazing practices not only provide the key to feeding calorie-dense beef and dairy products to a growing global population—predicted to hit 9.8 billion by 2050 —but are critical to controlling greenhouse gas emissions because of their ability to store carbon in the soil and potentially offset their emissions

Not everyone is convinced.

“This is an area of contestation ,” Garnett said. “We wanted to look at the evidence.”

The Argument for Grass-Fed Beef

With the world’s population climbing and as more countries, notably China , develop the wealth and appetite for animal products, food and agricultural researchers have puzzled over how to feed everyone.

Some proponents of grass-fed beef have argued that managed grazing on pasture provides not just more protein for a meat-hungry planet, but an essential climate benefit.

Here’s how that argument goes:

Plants grow, they take carbon out of the atmosphere, then they die. Their roots and aboveground biomass contain carbon. If that carbon is left undisturbed, then the carbon stays in the ground in a stable form. If animals nibble away at plants, that stimulates growth, causing plants to put down deep roots that contain carbon. At the same time, animals eat the plants and excrete manure, which contains carbon and nitrogen—a process that returns carbon and nitrogen to the soil and fosters more plant growth, sequestering more carbon.

So, the argument goes, it’s better to eat grass-fed, carbon-sequestering ruminants than “monogastric” creatures like pigs and chickens whose diets will require more grain and more carbon-storing forests cleared to grow those grains as demand for meat grows.

Problems with the Grass-Fed Beef Equation

“But,” Garnett said, “there are a lot of buts.”

Conditions—weather, rainfall, soil consistency, soil nutrients, plant species, stocking rates (the number of cattle per acre)—all need to be just right. They seldom are, the study says , which means that research emphasizing the possible climate benefits of pasture-fed ruminants has likely been overstated.

Garnett and her colleagues found that the carbon-sequestering potential of pasture-raised ruminants is quite limited.

Ruminants, they point out in a report published Monday, contribute 80 percent of total livestock emissions. But, they find, even under “very generous assumptions,” grazing management could only offset up to 60 percent of average annual emission from the grass-fed sector, and only up to 1.6 percent of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

To meet the growing demand for protein from grass-fed animals, the report said, “we would have to massively expand grazing land into forest and intensify existing grassland through the use of nutrient inputs, which among other things, would cause devastating CO2 releases and increases in methane and nitrous oxide emissions,” both potent climate-warming gases.

The report finds that if projections for animal product consumption stay unchanged, livestock would take up one-third of the total emissions budget under the Paris climate agreement ’s 2-degree warming limit.

“Increasing grass-fed ruminant numbers is, therefore, a self-defeating climate strategy,” the report concluded. The report, c alled Grazed and Confused, didn’t determine whether grass-fed beef is better or worse than feed-lot beef; instead it looked at the ability of grass-fed production systems to sequester carbon and what that would mean for the future.

No Silver Bullet for Beef-Based Diets

The report’s authors say the planet’s consumers need to cut their intake of all animal products, no matter how they were produced.

“We can’t escape the fact that if we’re going to have a hope in hell of cutting our climate emissions, then we need to stop our consumption of animal products,” Garnett said. “The high consumers of meat and dairy need to be cutting back their consumption. And that holds, whatever the animal type and whatever the system in which it’s been produced.”

Jonathan Kaplan, the food and agriculture program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which has looked at the issue extensively but was not involved in the Grazed and Confused report, said there’s research demonstrating that pasture-raised livestock sequester carbon, “but the case for arguing that it’s a silver bullet to take care of beef’s impact is not there.”

NRDC has concluded that, pound-for-pound, beef releases about 34 times more greenhouse gases than legumes, including lentils and black beans. The group also recently found that a decline in U.S. beef consumption contributed to a 9 percent decline in greenhouse gas emissions.

“Our take is that grass-fed is better than conventional,” Kaplan added, noting other benefits unrelated to greenhouse gas emissions, including better animal welfare and less water pollution. “But plants are better than either.”

Georgina Gustin

Reporter, washington, d.c..

@georgina_gustin
[email protected]

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Cooking up a storm: Food, greenhouse gas emissions and our changing climate

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Wageningen, Provincie Gelderland, Netherlands

Walter Fraanje

Other Affiliations: add
Research Interests: Ethics & Social Sustainability , Corporate Social Responsibility , Corporate Sustainability , Sustainable Development , Heidegger , Bruno Latour , and 45 more Environmental Sociology , Environmental Justice , Social Practice , Practice theory , Social Theory , Theodore Schatzki , Science and Technology Studies , Randall Collins , Michel Foucault , Pierre Bourdieu , Wittgenstein , Ulrich Beck , Clifford Geertz , Edward Said , Judith Butler , Ingrid Leman Stefanovic , David Held , Democracy , Deliberative Democracy , Martha Nussbaum , Critical Theory , Hannah Arendt , Slavoj Žižek , Martin Heidegger , Tim Ingold , Interaction Ritual Theory , Zigmund Baumann , Charles Taylor , Erving Goffman , Norbert Elias , Philosophy of Action , Phenomenology , Social Ontology , Continental Philosophy , Heidegger's Being and Time , Environmental Philosophy , Environmental Ethics , Marxism and Ecology , Environmental Psychology , Environment behavior Research , Place , Merleau-Ponty , Dwelling , Andreas Reckwitz , and Arne Naess ( Environmental Sociology , Environmental Justice , Social Practice , Practice theory , Social Theory , Theodore Schatzki , Science and Technology Studies , Randall Collins , Michel Foucault , Pierre Bourdieu , Wittgenstein , Ulrich Beck , Clifford Geertz , Edward Said , Judith Butler , Ingrid Leman Stefanovic , David Held , Democracy , Deliberative Democracy , Martha Nussbaum , Critical Theory , Hannah Arendt , Slavoj Žižek , Martin Heidegger , Tim Ingold , Interaction Ritual Theory , Zigmund Baumann , Charles Taylor , Erving Goffman , Norbert Elias , Philosophy of Action , Phenomenology , Social Ontology , Continental Philosophy , Heidegger's Being and Time , Environmental Philosophy , Environmental Ethics , Marxism and Ecology , Environmental Psychology , Environment behavior Research , Place , Merleau-Ponty , Dwelling , Andreas Reckwitz , and Arne Naess ) edit
About: I'm a Research and Communications Officer at the Food Climate Research Network at Oxford University - see fcrn.org.uk and foodsource.org.uk. My interests are in the different perspectives people have on food sustainability and wider sociological analysis of sustainability and everyday life. I have an MSc in Environmental Sciences (cum laude) from Wagening... more I'm a Research and Communications Officer at the Food Climate Research Network at Oxford University - see fcrn.org.uk and foodsource.org.uk. My interests are in the different perspectives people have on food sustainability and wider sociological analysis of sustainability and everyday life. I have an MSc in Environmental Sciences (cum laude) from Wageningen University during which I worked mostly on sustainable consumption topics and social theory. My background is in Philosophy (BA) and Industrial Engineering and Management (BSc). Before starting at the FCRN, I worked at Wageningen University and AMS-Institute on the EDx MOOC on ‘Co-creating Sustainable Cities’. (I'm a Research and Communications Officer at the Food Climate Research Network at Oxford University - see fcrn.org.uk and foodsource.org.uk. My interests are in the different perspectives people have on food sustainability and wider sociological analysis of sustainability and everyday life. I have an MSc in Environmental Sciences (cum laude) from Wageningen University during which I worked mostly on sustainable consumption topics and social theory. My background is in Philosophy (BA) and Industrial Engineering and Management (BSc). Before starting at the FCRN, I worked at Wageningen University and AMS-Institute on the EDx MOOC on ‘Co-creating Sustainable Cities’.) edit
Advisors: edit

More Info: https://foodsource.org.uk/building-blocks/soy-food -feed-and-land-use-change

Publication date: 2020, publication name: fcrn foodsource building block, research interests: environmental sustainability , sustainable supply chain , land use change , sustainable food systems , deforestation , and 3 more soybean , certification , and sustainable food & farming ( soybean , certification , and sustainable food & farming ), research interests: social change , practice theory , collaborative consumption , and sharing economy (), research interests: jurgen habermas , bruno latour , and representation (), research interests: practice theory , randall collins , theodore schatzki , and sharing economy ().

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'Diet-Climate Connection' audio documentary explores food in a warming planet

A poster with a globs shaped like a green apple. Text reads: how the foods we eat affect the plane we inhabit.'

BonjourParis_

When he started working on a new audio documentary about climate change, producer David Freudberg realized one thing.

“When I started studying this a few years ago, a kind of light bulb went off for me that the foods that climate scientists associate with the greatest emissions of greenhouse gases are generally the same foods that physicians and other public health officials advocate as being the unhealthiest for us,” Freudberg told GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Paris Alston. “And that's when I connected the dots.”

“The Diet-Climate Connection ,” a new audio documentary from Humankind, explores how the foods we eat affect the warming planet we inhabit. It's available online and will be airing on GBH 89.7 on Sunday at 8 p.m., just ahead of Earth Day.

It also features several voices in the Boston area.

“I had gone over to Tufts University, which turns out to be noted as an environmentally sensitive school,” Freudberg said. “I was looking for students who were focused on this, who had made dietary changes in their lives because of their concerns about climate change.”

One of them was named Olivia Calkins, an environmental engineering student.

“I've always wanted to help the environment. I've wanted to do that since I was younger, and I kind of thought the only way I could make a tangible impact on the environment was through my job,” Calkins told him. “But in high school, I kind of started to realize that I can do more things than just my career, because the food that we eat is a very big contributor to a lot of these effects of climate change.”

Calkins ended up becoming vegan in response environmental and animal welfare concerns.

Limiting animal products can be helpful in reducing greenhouse gasses, Freudberg said, but it’s also important to look at broader environmental impacts of any foods we consume.

So he asked Professor Walter Willett, who was the longtime chair of the nutrition department at Harvard, what he sees as the source of the problem.

“We could stop climate change from getting worse if we just acted on the things that we know are possible to do,” Willett told Freudberg. “But doing so is, of course, a strongly political issue. … The most important thing is to consume a diet that is producing less greenhouse gas emissions. The number one villain is cattle, both for meat production especially, but also for dairy production.”

That took Freudberg by surprise.

“I said cattle, you know, these gentle animals just grazing? And of course, that's a totally false image,” Freudberg said. “They're not just grazing. They're actually crammed into these factory farms, which are very unpleasant places. It's a very intensive process for an environmental footprint.”

Methane, he said, is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon. He is encouraging people to stay open-minded about our food choices.

“The good news is, you can experience joy in breaking free of a meat-centered diet and enjoying other cuisines, like beans and rice in Mexican food and the wonderfully spiced legumes in Indian food,” he said. “And that just requires us being a little more open-minded, and your palate will be rewarded.”

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Climate change driving up inflation in food prices: Study

R ising global temperatures are associated with inflation in food prices, both in regions that are already hotter and in countries outside the tropics like the U.S., according to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Central Bank studied monthly price indexes between 1996 and 2021 in 121 countries. The study found food prices are the monthly inflation signal most strongly associated with the climate, which researchers attributed to the supply shocks associated with temperature increases . Both new milestones for extreme heat and shifts in average temperatures are associated with longer-term inflation. In European countries, where the summer of 2022 broke temperature records, that heat was accompanied by food inflation increases of 0.43 percentage points to 0.93 percentage points.

The research also projected that between now and 2035, those same temperature increases could lead to “climateflation” increases of up to 3 points. The same European food inflation driven by last year’s extreme heat in Europe would be amplified 30 percent to 50 percent in 2035, according to modeling for that year’s temperature increases.

The impact is especially keenly felt in countries at lower latitudes that are already hotter than average and closer to temperatures that make it harder to sustain agriculture.

“With the intensity of hot extremes and their impacts on inflation being amplified with continuing climatic change, while being unpredictable in the medium- to longer-term, this relationship is set to increase inflation volatility,” researchers wrote. “This in turn may pose challenges to inflation forecasting and monetary policy, likely increasing the difficulty of identifying temporary supply shocks and disentangling them from more persistent drivers.”

The research is the latest indication that on top of natural disasters, climate change carries numerous financial costs and risks. An October study found that climate disasters cost nearly $400 million a day over a 20-year period.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

Climate change driving up inflation in food prices: Study

IMAGES

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Food Climate Research Network (FCRN)
The Food Climate Research Network conducts, synthesises, and communicates research at the intersection of food, climate, and broader sustainability issues. Based at the University of Oxford, they work to inform and connect stakeholders with a common interest in understanding and building sustainable food systems.
Food Climate Research Network (FCRN)
The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) is an interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international research-based network focused on food systems, climate and sustainability. Our vision is for a nutrition-driven, ethically mindful food system that sits within environmental limits. To achieve this we carry out research and help catalyse collaborative research projects that investigate the ...
FCRN Foodsource
Published on November 19, 2018. Foodsource is an open and expanding resource for information on sustainable food systems, led by the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) at the University of Oxford, and funded by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation. Its open-sourced resources are developed in collaboration with our partners and supporters.
The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) report from the EAT Forum
The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) participated in the recently organised EAT Forum in Stockholm. This initiative, founded by the Stordalen foundation in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre is intended to be a major annual event in which science, policy and business stakeholders from all over the world come together to help ...
Plating up solutions
The author is head of the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) . The FCRN is an interdisciplinary and international network focusing on food systems, at the University of Oxford. References and Notes. 1. Bennetzen E. H., Smith P., Porter J. R., Glob. Change Biol. 22, 763 (2016). Crossref.
Food Climate Research Network
Read writing from Food Climate Research Network on Medium. The FCRN synthesises and communicates research on food, climate, and broader sustainability issues. Join our 2000+ subscribers: http ...
About
About Food Climate Research Network on Medium. The FCRN synthesises and communicates research on food, climate, and broader sustainability issues. ... The FCRN synthesises and communicates ...
Food and Climate Change InfoGuide
The Food Climate Partnership is a joint effort of scholars at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, ... Food, Feed, and Land Use Change," Food Climate Research Network, University of Oxford, January 30, 2020; M. Shahbandeh, "Soybean production worldwide 2012/13-2019/20, by country," Statista, January 26, ...
Tara Garnett
Food Climate Research Network Leader, University of Oxford Profile Articles Activity Tara Garnett is a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute (link is external)at the University of ...
Addressing the Diet-Climate Connection
Food Climate Research Network and Chatham House. 2015. Changing Climate, Changing Diets: Pathways to Lower Meat Consumption. Chatham House. 2015. Tackling Climate Change through Livestock: A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2013.
PDF v Plates, pyramids, planet
Food Climate Research Network. 2 Plates, pyramids, planet However, despite the growing evidence base, government action is lagging behind. One important step that governments can take to signal their commitment to a more sustainable and healthy future, is to develop and disseminate food based dietary
How green is your ice-cream? Food groups race to cut emissions
Food accounts for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Food Climate Research Network. Ice-cream freezers are one part of its environmental footprint that Unilever can ...
Might Feedlots Be the Sustainable Option?
The new research, published by the Food Climate Research Network, finds that under the right conditions, best-practice cattle grazing can sequester more carbon in the soil than is emitted over the life cycle of the production system. But these cases are rare and cannot be scaled up across much of the world's grazing land.
PDF Cooking up a storm
Working paper produced as part of the work of the Food Climate Research Network, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey. 3 Garnett, T. (2006) Fruit and vegetables and greenhouse gas emissions: exploring the relationship, working paper produced as part of the work of the Food Climate Research Network, Centre for
Food sustainability: problems, perspectives and solutions
1 Food Climate Research Network, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. [email protected]; PMID: 23336559 DOI: 10.1017/S0029665112002947 Abstract The global food system makes a significant contribution to climate changing greenhouse gas emissions with all stages in the supply chain, from agricultural production ...
Why eating grass-fed beef isn't going to help fight climate change
Food Climate Research Network Leader, University of Oxford Disclosure statement. Tara Garnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that ...
Plates, Pyramids, Planet
Current food systems jeopardize current and future food production and fail to nourish people adequately. The starting point for this report is the observation that if we are to address the multiple social, health and environmental challenges caused by, and affecting food systems,global populations need to move towards dietary patterns that are both healthy and also respectful of environmental ...
Are Vegans Actually 'The Problem'?
Tara Garnett is a researcher at the University of Oxford where she runs the Food Climate Research Network and its sister site Foodsource. Her work centres on the interactions among food, climate ...
Eating Grass-Fed Beef Isn't as Climate-Friendly as You May Think
Tara Garnett, of the Food Climate Research Network at Oxford University in the UK, and her colleagues asked. The answer, they found, is no. Eating grass-fed beef doesn't get climate-conscious ...
Cooking up a storm: Food, greenhouse gas emissions and our changing climate
This report sets out what we know about the food system's contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Taking a life cycle perspective, it looks at how these emissions arise, both by life cycle stage (from plough to plate to bin) and by food type. ... Originally posted at : Food Climate Research Network: This resource is listed under:
Walter Fraanje
About: I'm a Research and Communications Officer at the Food Climate Research Network at Oxford University - see fcrn.org.uk and foodsource.org.uk. My interests are in the different perspectives people have on food sustainability and wider sociological analysis of sustainability and everyday life. I have an MSc in Environmental Sciences (cum ...
'Diet-Climate Connection' audio documentary explores food in a warming
The Diet-Climate Connection, a new audio documentary from Humankind, is exploring how the foods we eat affect the warming planet we inhabit. When he started working on a new audio documentary about climate change, producer David Freudberg realized one thing. "When I started studying this a few years ago, a kind of light bulb went off for me ...
In our changing climate, food availability must be a top concern
Food shortages can have cascading effects that create instability within nations and lead to mass migrations that affect neighboring countries. A working paper from the IMF released last December ...
Climate change driving up inflation in food prices: Study
Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Central Bank studied monthly price indexes between 1996 and 2021 in 121 countries. The study found food ...

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