Paris agreement on climate

A small shift away from a meat diet could have a big climate impact

Post By World climate emergency, euroviews, meat consumption, meat industry, Paris agreement on climate, Plants

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

In addition to the significant benefits to climate, nature and water, the shift to sustainable proteins would help Europeans lead healthier lives and politicians would benefit through lower spending on healthcare, Nico Muzi writes.

Going meat-free for just two days a week in the EU and the UK has outsized environmental benefits.

Such a moderate shift toward plant-based eating could result in an impressive reduction of 81 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year.

This has a comparable impact to taking a quarter — or about 65 million — of all cars off the roads of the EU and the UK.

Additionally, as meat production takes up a lot more farmland than protein crop production, this shift would free up an area of land larger than the entire United Kingdom. It would also save 2.2 cubic kilometres of water, equivalent to 880,000 swimming pools’ worth of water annually.

We know and can prove all of this — it’s all in the results of a new study by research consultancy Profundo for Madre Brava.

In a nutshell, by replacing animal proteins with a mix of wholegrain vegetal proteins and novel plant-based meat alternatives, we are making a change that will have an exponential impact on the long-term health and viability of our planet.

This moderate shift to plant proteins makes sense from a health viewpoint. As it stands, citizens in Europe and the UK consume 80% more meat than the global average.

More worryingly, Europeans consume four times more red meat than the recommended intake levels according to health experts at the EAT-Lancet Commission, led by 37 world-leading scientists from 16 countries from various disciplines, who have defined targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production.

The plant switch also makes climate sense. The excessive consumption of animal products plays a substantial role in driving emissions in the EU’s food sector, contributing to 70% of all emissions linked to food consumption in the bloc.

Furthermore, meat and dairy production are the single largest sources of methane emissions in the EU, and the most potent contributor to climate change. If Brussels doesn’t address livestock emissions, agriculture is set to become the bloc’s largest climate-polluting sector by 2040.

What does Europe need?

Climate scientists agree that the only way to achieve the Paris Agreement goals is to significantly reduce the total production and consumption of meat globally.

In Europe, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) explored what it would take for the EU agriculture sector to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Different scenarios leading to significant greenhouse gas emission reductions with a mix of different sustainable farming methods all require a 75% reduction of EU meat consumption by 2050 compared to 2010.

Europe needs diet shifts to decarbonise agriculture. Thus, the UK and the EU need to pay greater attention to the protein transition, alongside exploring sustainable intensification and methane mitigation technologies.

The good news is that consumers are, slowly but surely, coming along for the journey.

The number of Europeans who reportedly are cutting down on meat (known as flexitarians) is growing, every year. In some countries — the salient case being Germany — meat consumption has been falling consistently for the past five years.

While this is progress, dietary changes are not happening at the rate needed to bring down emissions in line with those needed to keep planetary heating within a safe threshold (1.5C).

Moreover, the onus for this transition should not rest on consumers’ shoulders. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

What should happen?

Currently, meat and dairy production receive significant subsidies, lower value-added tax and funding for promotion and advertising, which puts plant-based foods and alternative proteins at a disadvantage.

Subsidies, taxes, public procurement and corporate strategies must be realigned to incentivize vegetal and alternative proteins, making them the cheapest, healthiest, and most convenient option for consumers.

Policymakers across Europe should also level the playing field between animal and plant-based products by removing funding for meat promotion and realigning taxes that favour animal-based products.

More importantly, the EU should go big with novel sustainable proteins. As it has done with hydrogen and batteries, the European Commission should come up with a big investment plan for the nascent novel sustainable protein industry to ensure Europe can lead (not follow) in the next food innovation.

Food retailers should chip in too. For decades, the food industry has played a significant role in shaping consumer attitudes and preferences.

Thus, it is only fitting that the food industry takes a leading role in encouraging better and more available choices of pulses, legumes, whole grains and alternative proteins.

There’s initial movement, with some supermarkets in Germany and The Netherlands setting up targets to increase the share of plant-based proteins in the overall protein portfolio. We need more ambition and more supermarkets in other European countries to follow suit.

Who would benefit from the shift to plants?

Most importantly, the transition to plant-based diets could also offer more income and improved livelihoods for EU farmers.

If, on top of that, the EU decides to go big on novel sustainable proteins, the bloc could build an entirely new economic sector, creating thousands of new jobs.

European governments and food retailers should play a catalytic role in ensuring that sustainable proteins are the cheapest, healthiest and easiest choice for consumers when doing their food shop.

Nico Muzi is the managing director and co-founder of Madre Brava, a science-based advocacy organisation working to bring in line the food system with the 1.5C climate target.

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We share a common destiny. It’s our duty to shape it for the better

Post By World Africa, climate emergency, euroviews, Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo, Paris agreement on climate

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

Let us ensure that climate justice prevails, honouring our duty to the generations that will inherit the world we leave behind, Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo writes in an exclusive op-ed for Euronews.

In the small fishing villages along the Ghanaian coast, generations have relied on the ocean for their livelihoods.

But as our planet heats up, the seas warming up and extreme weather combine to devastate their way of life.

A World Bank report found that climate change alone could reduce Ghana’s potential fish catch by 25% or more by 2050, threatening a way of life and key food source when much of Africa already scrambles to feed its people.

This is the Ghanaian experience — but it is a story repeated in developing countries across the world.

Another report, by Groundswell West Africa, found that up to 32 million people across the region — the equivalent of Ghana’s population — might be displaced by 2050.

The people who are the least to blame for climate change find themselves the first victims of an incoming disaster they did not cause.

Ghana, thankfully, has managed to keep developing rapidly. Our economy has grown at an average annual rate of around 6% over the past two decades – from a GDP of just below $5 billion (€4.74bn) 20 years ago to more than $77bn (€73bn) now.

We have invested in infrastructure, diversified our production base and modernized the country’s agricultural sector, which employs a large part of the population.

And we are working tirelessly to do our bit in the global fight against climate change.

‘Fair share’: A small phrase, yet deceptively simple

Ghana is a founding partner of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), and the first country in the world to include short-lived climate pollutants — such as methane and black carbon — into our Paris Agreement emissions reduction efforts.

We have committed to reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to accelerating climate adaptation in several priority sectors as a part of our effort to deliver the Paris Agreement.

But as drought, floods and heat waves continue to set new records across the world, we do not know how long we can keep up our efforts both to lift our population out of poverty and deliver nationally on global targets like the Sustainable Development Goals.

As we do our bit, we are asking those countries that have polluted the most, and that have the greatest means to take action, to do their fair share.

This small phrase, “fair share”, is deceptively simple. But it is the core of any effort that would see the world join together to protect our shared home.

Those who polluted the most in the past need to do more now

The major economies, especially in the West, have spent the past century growing rich off the back of fossil-fuel-powered industrialisation.

As vulnerable nations, we are convinced it is only fair that those, who polluted the most in the past, must make a greater effort to tackle climate change, especially when they are also the richest and most capable to act.

Indeed, if those most responsible fail to own up to their fair share, it means we are counting on marginal polluters, the poor and vulnerable who are most impacted, to deliver the bulk of further efforts needed to avoid a planetary breakdown.

This would not only be fundamentally unjust, but also unrealistic: despite over one billion people calling our continent home, ultimately, all 54 of the African countries’ emissions amount to less than 4% of today’s global total.

Compare this with the G20’s 80% share. Or take the G7, who, with a smaller population than Africa, are responsible for close to half of all climate pollution since 1950.

An asymmetric relationship at the core of the issue

By asking countries to do their fair share, we are calling on them to set and deliver emission targets which take into account their past emissions, as well as their share of wealth and the global population.

Today, most major economies look only at their current pollution levels and assume every country will cut emissions at the same rate, regardless of how rich or populous they are.

To highlight this asymmetric relationship, the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), which I chair, commissioned the Traffic Light Assessment.

It evaluates the 2030 Paris targets of every country on the same basis looking at their past pollution, wealth or development level, and share of the global population.

It awards a green light to nations who are doing their fair-share to stay within a 1.5 degrees Celsius world, an orange light for a 2 degrees Celsius world and a red light for anything beyond that.

Its findings show that the vast majority of the world’s nations — mainly developing countries — are already doing their fair share. This includes, on aggregate, Africa, the Least Developed Countries, the CVF and nearly all small island developing states.

The sense of distance is misleading

On the other hand, only a handful of developed countries, including the UK and Switzerland, come anywhere close to a fair share effort from among the rich.

Of the major emerging economies, India, home to one-fifth of the world’s population, pollutes below 2 tonnes of CO2 per person compared to the G7 average of 13.

Both the G7 and G20 have been given a red light, as most have climate targets that are nowhere near what would constitute them doing their fair share.

That has to change. With such an alarming gap between what is being done and what must be done, the red light is flashing, and it now falls on those most responsible and capable to step up and deliver.

The fate of fishing villages that could be underwater in a few decades’ time, like Fuveme here in Ghana’s Volta region, might feel distant to those shielded from these threats for now.

But that sense of safety is false — we share a common destiny, and it’s our responsibility to shape it for the better. Let us ensure that climate justice prevails, honouring our duty to the generations that will inherit the world we leave behind.

Nana Akufo-Addo is the President of Ghana.