Further Reading
Key Reports
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021)
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Authors: IPCC Working Group I
The report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence and highlighting the critical need for humanity to act urgently to tackle the climate crisis.
Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss (2021)
Source: Chatham House
Authors: Tim G. Benton, Carling Bieg, Helen Harwatt, Roshan Pudasaini and Laura Wellesley
Collaborated by a top UK policy advisory body, this paper explores the role of the global food system as the principal driver of accelerating biodiversity loss. It explains how food production is degrading or destroying natural habitats and contributing to species extinction. The paper outlines the challenges and trade-offs involved in redesigning food systems to restore biodiversity and/or prevent further biodiversity loss, and presents recommendations for action.
IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (2020)
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Authors: IPCC Working Groups I, II and III
This report addresses greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes in land-based ecosystems, land use and sustainable land management in relation to climate change adaptation and mitigation, desertification, land degradation and food security.
Changing Climate, Changing Diets: Pathways to Lower Meat Consumption (2015)
Source: Chatham House
Authors: Laura Wellesley, Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt
This Chatham House report highlights the important issues of diet – in particular meat consumption – and the significant contributions such dietary choices make to climate change. Pathways to transforming our food system, as well as analysis of the core problems, are outlined alongside essential recommendations.
Books
Breaking Boundaries (2021)
Authors: Johan Rockström and Owen Gaffney
On the brink of a critical moment in human history, this book presents a vision of “planetary stewardship” – a rethinking of our relationship with our planet – and plots a new course for our future.
The authors, whose work is the subject of a new Netflix documentary released in summer 2021 and narrated by Sir David Attenborough, reveal the full scale of the planetary emergency we face – but also how we can stabilise Earth’s life support systems.
Scientific studies
Authors: Xiaoming Xu, Prateek Sharma, Shijie Shu, Tzu-Shun Lin, Philippe Ciais, Francesco N. Tubiello, Pete Smith, Nelson Campbell & Atul K. Jain
Published: 2021
Abstract:
Agriculture and land use are major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but previous estimates were either highly aggregate or provided spatial details for subsectors obtained via different methodologies. Using a model–data integration approach that ensures full consistency between subsectors, we provide spatially explicit estimates of production- and consumption-based GHG emissions worldwide from plant- and animal-based human food in circa 2010. Global GHG emissions from the production of food were found to be 17,318 ± 1,675 TgCO2eq yr−1, of which 57% corresponds to the production of animal-based food (including livestock feed), 29% to plant-based foods and 14% to other utilizations. Farmland management and land-use change represented major shares of total emissions (38% and 29%, respectively), whereas rice and beef were the largest contributing plant- and animal-based commodities (12% and 25%, respectively), and South and Southeast Asia and South America were the largest emitters of production-based GHGs.
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers
Authors: J. Poore and T. Nemecek
Published: 2018
Abstract:
Food’s environmental impacts are created by millions of diverse producers. To identify solutions that are effective under this heterogeneity, we consolidated data covering five environmental indicators; 38,700 farms; and 1600 processors, packaging types, and retailers. Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product, creating substantial mitigation opportunities. However, mitigation is complicated by trade-offs, multiple ways for producers to achieve low impacts, and interactions throughout the supply chain. Producers have limits on how far they can reduce impacts. Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change. Cumulatively, our findings support an approach where producers monitor their own impacts, flexibly meet environmental targets by choosing from multiple practices, and communicate their impacts to consumers.