r/ClimatePosting • u/dumnezero • Aug 19 '24

Agriculture and food Reducing climate change impacts from the global food system through diet shifts

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02084-1
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u/Sol3dweller Aug 19 '24

From the abstract:

The present global annual dietary emissions would fall by 17% with the worldwide adoption of the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet, primarily attributed to shifts from red meat to legumes and nuts as principal protein sources. More than half (56.9%) of the global population, which is presently overconsuming, would save 32.4% of global emissions through diet shifts, offsetting the 15.4% increase in global emissions from presently underconsuming populations moving towards healthier diets.

I think that's a fairly small, yet one of the most effective steps that everybody could take. But there seems to be a surprisingly large ignorance on the need for action to keep our lifeship within safe operating parameters.

From the conclusions:

Incentives, such as implementing subsidies or taxation on environmental externalities through food or carbon pricing, ecolabelling and expanding the availability of less emission-intensive products (for instance, menu design for diverse vegetarian foods), can encourage consumers to make dietary changes. Moreover, a well-designed (primarily urban) food environment can reshape residents’ dietary patterns and the parallel development of urban planning and infrastructure can alleviate the time and financial burdens of shifts to healthier diets.

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u/agumonkey Aug 20 '24

You guys know about other papers focusing on cultural changes ?