MEAT-HEAVY diets and food waste are contributing to severe risks associated with climate change, a UN science body says in a report that pushes consumers to change their habits before it’s too late. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) advocates a global shift towards eating more plantbased food and less meat, noting that this would curb greenhouse gases and free up land for more sustainable uses.
While carbon-heavy flights are increasingly giving travellers a bad conscience, the impact of agriculture and other human use of land currently account for 23 percent of manmade greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC. The UN body also appealed for the world to turn to sustainable agriculture before it becomes too late to protect farmlands from climate change.
“This would contribute to a reduction of methane emissions,” said the German biologist Hans-Otto Poertner, who was one of the report’s lead authors and who attended the final drafting session in Geneva. The panel also called for the stemming of the loss and waste of edible food, which is estimated to account for at least 8 per cent of man-made greenhouse gases. Air temperatures above land have already risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial age, twice as much as the overall global rise that also includes oceans, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Thursday in Geneva.
In their new report titled “Climate Change and Land,” the panel’s scientists analysed how climate change threatens forests and fields, how farming can stem global warming, and
how to balance these two facts so that growing populations have enough to eat. The report warns that the world faces a high risk of drought, wildfires, thawing permafrost and unstable food supplies. “Risks … are projected to become increasingly severe with increasing temperatures,” the UN body said. – dpa
