About a tenth of overall global greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture could be traced back to food waste by mid-century, a new study shows. A team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research for the first time provides comprehensive food loss projections for countries around the world while also calculating the associated emissions. Currently, one third of global food production never finds its way onto our plates. This share will increase drastically, if emerging countries like China and India adopt Western nutrition lifestyles, the analyses shows. Reducing food waste would offer the chance to ensure food security, which is well known. Yet at the same time it could help mitigate dangerous climate change.
About a tenth of overall global greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture could be traced back to food waste by mid-century, a new study shows. A team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research for the first time provides comprehensive food loss projections for countries around the world while also calculating the associated emissions. Currently, one third of global food production never finds its way onto our plates. This share will increase drastically, if emerging countries like China and India adopt Western nutrition lifestyles, the analyses shows. Reducing food waste would offer the chance to ensure food security, which is well known. Yet at the same time it could help mitigate dangerous climate change.
“Reducing food waste can contribute to fighting hunger, but to some extent also prevent climate impacts like more intense weather extremes and sea-level rise,” lead author Ceren Hic says. Even though food availability on a global average has been higher than required in theory, some developing countries still have to fight undernourishment or hunger. “At the same time, agriculture is a major driver of climate change, accounting for more than 20 Percent of overall global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2010. Avoiding food loss and waste would therefore avoid unnecessary greenhouse-gas emissions and help mitigate climate change,” co-author Prajal Pradhan explains.
The researchers analyzed body types and food requirements for the past and different future scenarios, accounting for demographic changes as well as food demand and availability and associated emissions. They found that while the global average food demand per person remains almost constant, in the last five decades already food availability has rapidly increased. “More importantly, food availability and requirement ratio show a linear relationship with human development, indicating that richer countries consume more food than is healthy or simply waste it,” Pradhan adds. Consequently, greenhouse-gas emissions associated with food waste could increase tremendously from today 0.5 to 1.9-2.5 Gigatons of CO2 equivalents per year by 2050, the study shows.
Due to an unbridled demographic growth and lifestyle changes, emissions from agriculture alone are expected to rise by up to 18 Gigatons of CO2 equivalents by 2050, previous research already showed. “Thus, emissions related to discarded food are just the tip of the iceberg,“ Prajal Pradhan explains. “However, it is quite astounding that up to 14 percent of overall agricultural emissions in 2050 could easily be avoided by a better management of food utilisation and distribution. Changing individual behavior could be one key towards mitigating the climate crisis.“
Continue reading at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Food waste image via Shutterstock.
