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Even if you already were today eliminating all emissions from the energy sector, we would have great difficulties in achieving the common climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement. That’s the conclusion of a British-American study published in the journal Science. Reaching the targets also requires a sharp reduction in emissions from agriculture and food production, the researchers write.
Martin Persson, associate professor of environmental science at Chalmers University of Technology, has read the study.
– Actually, it’s a pretty straightforward study. Scenarios have been used to see how the world’s population is increasing, how our diets change as we get richer, and how yields in agriculture can be expected to increase over time. And it has been linked to data on the magnitude of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions from various foods. In this way, it has been possible to calculate the total emissions of carbon dioxide over time.
That we cannot achieve the climate goals without reducing emissions from our food systems is pretty obvious, says Martin Persson. Emissions from agriculture and food production today account for about a third of our total greenhouse gas emissions globally. But it’s a good study that clearly illustrates this problem, he says.
– It also shows that the most important measure we can take to reduce emissions is to change our diet. A transition to a diet with more vegetables cuts emissions by almost half. And so it is not a completely vegan or vegetarian diet but something they describe more as a Mediterranean diet.
A switch to a more vegetarian diet would have a much greater effect in reducing emissions than measures that increase yields in agriculture, genetically modified crops, for example, and almost twice the effect that one gets from technical measures in agriculture, the researchers write. But achieving such a change over time also requires political decisions.
– Today are great parts of these emissions are not “priced” in the same way that emissions from the energy sector where we have carbon taxes and trading systems and the like, does not exist for these emissions. If we want to change this and reduce emissions, we must also introduce political instruments to make this happen.
Reference: Michael A. Clark. et al. “Emissions from the global food system could prevent the achievement of the climate change targets of 1.5 ° C and 2 ° C.” Science, 2020.
DOI: 10.1126 / science.aba7357.
