Climate change: Consumers can help cut emissions through food choices

This is according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change by the EAT-Lancet Commission, a collection of 37 scientists from around the world.

The paper concludes that if around 57% of the global population considered to be “over-consuming”​ switched to the planetary health diet proposed by the commission, it could save 32.4% of global dietary emissions.

Such a shift would balance the 15.4% increase in global dietary emissions from currently under-consuming populations, which represents 43.1% of the global population, moving toward healthier diets.

Looking at who consumes what, the study showed that affluent countries consume high-emission diets but display relatively lower levels of inequality, while many poor countries tend to have diets with lower emissions but higher levels of inequality.

Seeking solutions

In order to encourage a widespread shift towards lower emission diets in affluent countries, the researchers called for measures such as carbon pricing, eco-labelling and expanding the availability of less emission-intensive vegetarian and plant-based products.

These initiatives, however, need to be paired with the development of urban planning and infrastructure in order to reduce the time and financial barriers that currently prevent people from adopting healthier diets.

Meanwhile, the nature of global food production would need to change considerably in order to match any major shifts in demand. Changed food demand could also cause fluctuating prices of agricultural products and land in global markets, triggering spillover effects between different food categories or to other non-food sectors and partly offsetting the benefits of diet shifts.

‘Consumer choice’ central to study

First author Yanxian Li, a PhD student at the University of Groningen said: “The objective of the diet shift scenario is to assess the potential implications of emission mitigation of the food system resulting from changing consumer choices instead of forcing everyone to adopt the same diet.”​

Meanwhile, corresponding author Dr Yuli Shan, from the University of Birmingham, commented: “Compared to plant-based products, animal-based products show greater potential for reducing emissions.  ​

“We should look to reduce over-consumption of emission-intensive products in affluent countries, such as beef in Australia and the US especially for wealthy consumer groups who are overconsuming, which would help to achieve significant health and climate benefits.”​

Finally, fellow corresponding author Professor Klaus Hubacek, from the University of Groningen, explained that lower income countries face greater challenges in adopting lower emission diets as 1.5bn low-income people around the world “are unable to afford the cost of the planetary health diet”.​

“Diet shifts need increased food consumption, but Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as South and Southeast Asia, have experienced stagnating agriculture production efficiency for decades and cannot produce nor afford to import the required food,”​ Professor Hubacek added.

"Agricultural efficiency must increase through various measures such as crop and soil management techniques and introduction of high-yielding crop varieties. But the proportions of nutrient-rich products in food imports must increase – alongside a reduction in restrictive trade policies which tend to raise food prices.” ​

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