The Green New Deal is an ambitious framework for legislation that aims to mitigate climate change by limiting global warming to less than 1.5º Celsius. Proposed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), the program would prospectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by half and focuses on transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2030 by greening the transportation, manufacturing, and agricultural industries and investing in carbon sequestration technologies. The program would also create jobs and better social services for Americans.
Image Source: Raconteur
Despite all of its strengths, the Green New Deal omits one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions: food waste. This is true of almost all climate policy, which focuses almost entirely on renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and protecting forests. Although these solutions are necessary in the fight against climate change, they largely focus on fossil fuels and land use and omit other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as food waste.
This is also true of the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Under the agreement, nations are required to report and accelerate their emission reduction strategies, also known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), in order to keep the global temperature from rising 2º C. NDCs must be updated every five years. We are now in the second quarter of 2020, and the second round of the NDCs are rolling in. So far, Chile, Suriname, Norway, the Marshall Islands, and Moldova have submitted updated plans. Despite ambitious plans to increase food security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these plans overlook food waste.
A recent study discovered that global food waste, especially in developed countries, is severely underestimated. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, food waste accounts for 4.4 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, roughly 10% of global emissions. If food waste were a country, it would have the third largest carbon footprint after China and the United States.
Greenhouse gas emissions linked to food waste come from a myriad of sources. The most obvious are the emissions that come from decaying food when it is landfilled. Other greenhouse gases associated with food waste come from the energy used along the supply chain, from on-farm use to transporting and storing food that is ultimately lost or wasted, and deforestation to produce food that is wasted.
Photo From Energy and Environment Leader
Moving forward, policymakers need to consider food waste in their discussions about how to tackle climate change according to a recent report from Project Drawdown, a nonprofit environmental organization that researches solutions for climate change. The report revealed that reducing food waste is the most effective solution for reducing greenhouse emissions, with the potential to remove up to 93.8 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere over a 30 year period (2020-2050). That is more than twice the amount of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2018 (37.1 gigatons of CO2 emissions).
Food waste can become a renewable resource. It can be composted, used for biofuels, or used as animal feed. Such strategies will reduce virgin materials consumption and energy consumption, leading to overall reductions in emissions.
Addressing food waste is not only a solution for climate change, but a solution to global food insecurity which is expected to rise as the population grows and the effects of climate change advance. The majority of the countries that have updated their NDCs plan to undertake food security – mostly through increasing production in sustainable ways. However, reducing food waste is going to be essential in tackling global food insecurity.
Food waste reduction requires actions to be taken by the public sector, the private sector, and civil society across local, national, regional, and global levels. Improving infrastructure in developing countries would help reduce food loss and also improve food security. Solar Chill has invented solar powered refrigerators that are currently being used to store vaccines in Kenya and Colombia, while an MIT D-Lab researcher, has developed an evaporative cooler that relies on natural processes to cool the interior of a container for several days. Meanwhile, in developed countries, such as the United States and the UK, government mandated policies will be necessary to reduce consumer and commercial food waste.
As more countries in the Paris Agreement update their second-round NDCs, they must consider including food waste. Food waste reduction is a win-win solution: mitigating climate change and improving global food security. Any meaningful climate action will include a plan for reducing food waste.