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Climate friendly diet


Summary#

The IPCC estimates that agriculture will account for 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions in 2030. Can individuals, through changes in their diet, reduce those emissions? This contest seeks proposals that include physical actions involving what people actually eat and/or social actions that shape dietary habits.

Mitigation potential#

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Agriculture sector was responsible for 6.6 Gigatons or Gt (1 Gigaton is a billion tons) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2004, measured in terms of CO2 equivalent (CO2eq).

Agriculture is expected to account for 8.3 Gt-CO2eq of emissions in 2030. The latter figure amounts to 15 percent of estimated total 2030 global emissions of 55.7 Gt-CO2eq.

Contest focus#

The second most popular global proposal in the Climate CoLab's 2011 global contest was The Planet Or Your Plate: Mitigate Climate Change by Going Meatless, so members of the Climate CoLab community may well already be aware of the potential impact of reduced meat eating on climate.

But what other steps toward a more climate friendly diet could contribute to mitigating climate change? Going organic? Avoiding excess packaging? Eating more locally sourced foods?

Current contest status#

This contest was begun as a pilot of a new mode of collaborative proposal writing in early 2012. It is currently inactive but may be re-started later.

References#

IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change, Chapter 8: Agriculture