Government report recommends overhaul of land use and huge reductions in CO2 emission
The Department for Energy and Climate Change have published a report on their Global Calculator, a model which sets out what the ‘average lifestyle’ would need to be to meet climate change targets in 2050.
The project was based on a question:
“Is it physically possible to meet our climate targets and ensure everyone has good living standards by 2050?”
This is defined as all ten billion people in the world eating well, travelling more and living in more comfortable homes, whilst simultaneously ‘reducing emissions to a level consistent with a 50 per cent chance of 2°C warming’.
If this is to be achieved, the report says, the amount of CO2 emitted globally per unit of electricity needs to fall by at least 90 per cent by 2050. The proportion of people who heat their homes using other sources – electric or zero carbon – should rise to 25 to 50 per cent globally by 2050.
It was calculated that fossil fuel use must fall from being 82 per cent of our primary energy supply today to 40 per cent by 2050, with a sharp fall in coal demand required.
As well as transforming technology, there needs to be a change in how we use land resources, which will have a significant impact on people’s diets. In particular, the report concludes, we must make use of forests as a valuable carbon sink, and protect and expand them globally by five to 15 per cent.
In conjunction with this, the report recommends that people change their eating habits in order to maximise the land area required to produce food. It says that switching from beef consumption towards pork, poultry, vegetables and grains will significantly improve land use:
“Currently an area the size of a football pitch can be used to produce 250kg of beef, 1,000kg of poultry (both fed on grains and residues) or 15,000 of fruit and vegetables.
“In 2050, if everyone switched to the healthy diet as recommended by the World Health Organisation (2,100 calories on average, of which 160 calories is meat), this could save up to 15 GtCO2e in 205011 as the freed up land is used for forest or bioenergy.”
This would entail a big overhaul of lifestyle for many people, and worrying changes for farmers. It is for this reason that the report emphasises the importance of strong leadership from businesses, civil society and politicians, in the run up to the UN convention in December of this year.
26 Responses to “Diet is crucial in the fight to meet climate change targets”
ReduceGHGs
Sure, we need to change our diets in the long run. To change course now we need new laws and policies. The problem is that more than half the members of the U.S. Congress are NOT on board with any plan to reduce global emissions. They are on record saying that humans are not the cause of global warming despite what our respected scientific institutions have been telling us. They reject the reality and put our future generations at risk.
More of us, from all corners, need to confront them and work to see them replaced with law makers willing to face and deal with the reality.
Please join the efforts.
ExhaustingHabitability(dot)org
damon
We’re still at an early stage of knowing how to discuss this properly.
At the moment the green/left arguments like the one in the OP and the comment by ”ReduceGHGs” (to me) just sound really annoying.
And I’ve been practically living on vegetarian ”rice and curry” for months now out in south Asia.
Because its so much cheaper and I don’t like the look of the way they handle meat here.
I know its the best diet I ever normally eat.
CB
I don’t know if that’s true!
…if you wanted to add “to maintain a healthy population”, or “to feed the number of people currently on the planet” it certainly would be, but in terms of climate change, all the food we eat is essentially carbon-neutral, including cows.
Going vegetarian is one of the easiest and most effective ways for an individual to reduce the size of her ecological footprint, of course, but I think it’s very important to maintain a distinction between biological carbon and fossil carbon.
A system which runs off the former can be completely sustainable.
A system which runs off the latter most certainly cannot.
CB
lol! His argument wasn’t a green/left argument, it was a simple statement of fact!
Almost the entirety of the Republican party in the USA is deeply delusional and under the impression it’s possible to make the laws of physics disappear simply by shouting “NO!”
Step one in addressing climate change is curing these people of their mental illness or removing them from office.
Crazy people do not make good leaders.
damon
The USA has a population of about 318 million.
China has about a billion more.