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Cooking up a storm: Food, greenhouse gas emissions and our changing climate.
This newly published FCRN report sets out what we know about the food system’s contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Taking a life cycle perspective, it looks at how these emissions arise, both by life cycle stage (from plough to plate to bin) and by food type. It then explores the flip side of the coin: the global impact of a changing climate on how we grow, distribute, produce and consume food. We follow this with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of and challenges for the life cycle analysis methodology upon which the report has drawn.
The next part of the study explores the mitigation options. We look both at what food GHG reductions might be
achieved through the use of cleaner technologies and better management and at what changes in behaviour are needed.
Arguing that both are essential, we very approximately calculate what level of food emission reductions could be
achieved through a combination of technological and behavioural change. This leads to a discussion of the relationship
between the goals of food GHG reduction and improved nutritional wellbeing: we ask how far these two goals are compatible
both at the UK and global levels. The penultimate section examines the policy context, highlighting what actions are
being taken at the UK, EU and international levels to tackle food-GHG emissions. Finally, we offer our conclusions and
recommendations, the key one being that the UK Government should commit to achieving a 70% or more absolute reduction
in food-related GHG emissions by 2050 and should set out how it intends to achieve these cuts.
Download the full report here or the 28pp summary document, here.
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The Food Climate Research Network is a UK research council-funded initiative. It works to research & promote ways of achieving absolute reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the whole UK food chain. See here for more information.
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