The world and its dog are rightly condemning the transport industry for continuing to push oil-based consumption. It is poisoning our atmosphere and heating the planet, not to mention making coastal areas uninhabitable. But is the problem coming just as much from our kitchens? Recent research suggests it could be. By Jeremy Torr.

Tasmania, 8 November 2020. The US Environmental Protection Agency EPA estimated that in 2018 the transport industry produced almost 29% of all US greenhouse gas emissions. This came from burning fossil fuel in cars, ships, trains, and planes. That’s a huge and worrying proportion, but recent research from Denmark suggests that transport, although an easy target, is not the biggest villain. Your diet is. 

“Although reducing (use of) fossil fuels is essential for meeting emissions goals, other sources of emissions may … preclude that attainment,” says a recent report from Science. “Meeting the 1.5°C target also requires rapid and ambitious changes to food systems … (or) by the end of the century, (the food industry) threatens the achievement of the 2°C target.” It goes on to say that even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, current trends in global food systems would make the 1.5°C temperature target unreachable. Enough to give anybody indigestion.

Indeed, our food production system currently makes up around 30% cent of global greenhouse gas emissions says research published by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a global collective of expert research centres. Deforestation, natural habitats being turned into farmland, the use of artificial fertilisers and methane from livestock are all listed as major factors in agriculture’s contribution to the climate crisis.

A lot of that agricultural gas comes from meat. “Shifting global diets away from red meat is estimated to bring reduced emissions by up to two thirds, reduce health costs and save millions of lives,” says Dr. Sonja Vermeulen, CGIAR researcher at the University of Copenhagen and WWF’s Global Food Lead Scientist.

According to Vermeulen, the average person in most wealthy countries consumes between 15-50% more meat and dairy than is considered healthy - or sustainable. And that reliance on farmed meat and dairy is now worrying scientists just as much as oil-based emissions. “Beef production alone contributes over 40% to global agricultural emissions,” she says. “Of total global greenhouse gas emissions, livestock is responsible for 14.5%. Just reducing red meat consumption by 50% and dairy by 20% could drastically decrease global (gas) emissions.” The CGIAR report asserts that reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint is crucial. If emissions from food production continue to grow at the current rate, scientists estimate they could reach 1,356 gigatons by the end of the century.

To be sustainable and atmosphere-friendly, farmers need to switch to cultivating more climate-friendly crops (like peanuts) and less industrial farming practices, and commercial food producers and suppliers to move to less wasteful processes. These could include sowing regenerative crops such as clover as cover to suppress weeds and return organic matter to the soil, rotating crops like carrots and potatoes with cereals to help fix nitrogen back into the soil. This will demand as much nurturing of the land as is usually lavished on crops, unlike the current methods which revolve around planting cash crops and using fertiliser and mechanised watering systems to get the highest yields.

The good news is, things are already changing. A recent NYU (New York University) study found that switching to plant-based foods such as lentils, beans and nuts could help to “drastically” reduce the effects of years of carbon emissions on the climate, and could actually help reduce existing CO2 levels. According to the study’s findings, vegetation regrowth could potentially remove as much as up to 16 years-worth of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions - if demand for meat were to drastically plummet in the coming decades. That much CO2 removal would effectively double Earth’s rapidly shrinking carbon budget.

“The greatest potential (for) climate benefits exists in high- and upper-middle income countries, places where scaling back on land-hungry meat and dairy would have relatively minor impacts on food security,” says Matthew Hayek, assistant professor at NYU Department of Environmental Studies. “Shifting our eating habits toward land-friendly diets is a supplement to shifting energy (usage), rather than a substitute,” says Hayek.

Food-based emissions are also coming under scrutiny at the consumption, rather than production stage.  Nestlé, Carrefour, Unilever and PepsiCo, have all committed to halving their food waste by 2030; currently 1.3 billion tonnes of food is thrown away every year to rot down and produce yet more methane.

“Food loss and waste are unseen, undervalued and a disturbing loss of human, environmental and economic capital,” said Unilever CEO Alan Jope. It would be good to buy an electric vehicle – but maybe even better (and easier) to change your diet.