• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

Reducing Food Waste Would Save 70.53 Gigatons of Carbon by 2050

April 17, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes

Nick Saltmarsh/Twitter

Nick Saltmarsh/Twitter

 

Reduced food waste places #3 on the Drawdown list of climate solutions. Reducing global food waste by 50% could decrease carbon emissions by a total of 70.53 gigatons by 2050, including emissions that would be cut by preventing deforestation for farmland.

Hunger is a pressing issue world-wide, yet a third of the global food supply ends up wasted—and food waste contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, food waste makes up almost 8% of total human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, placing it just behind China as the world’s third-biggest GHG emitter.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

Food is wasted all over the world, for various reasons. In lower-income countries, infrastructure is mostly to blame: Drawdown explains that food wastage is structural in nature and the combined result of high heat, poor roads, limited or no storage and refrigeration, and deficient packaging, which result in spoilage. In high-income countries, food waste is largely intentional: it occurs primarily cosmetic reasons, or consumers just don’t eat what they buy.

The chapter describes these gaps as a lack of “kitchen efficiency”. When food gets tossed, resources including land and water are wasted, and methane gas is created from idle organic waste.

A successful effort to reduce and prevent food waste will call for better infrastructure in low-income countries, and new policies and attitudes in higher-income countries. Date labels, which Drawdown describes as unregulated and misleading for consumers, should be standardized to focus on health and safety rather than taste. Drawdown also highlights the importance of consumer education campaigns that promote “ugly” produce and creative ways to reuse food waste for the public good. National policy changes should follow the lead of France and Italy, where it is now illegal for supermarkets to dispose of leftover food.

Drawdown points to prevention as the key to cutting emissions produced by food waste. “Given the complexity of the supply chain that food travels, waste reduction depends on the engagement of diverse actors: food businesses, environmental groups, anti-hunger organizations, and policy-makers.” And, of course, the billions of eaters across the globe will need to be involved, particularly where food waste is most prevalent—including in Canada.



in Carbon Levels & Measurement, Drawdown, Ending Emissions, Food Security & Agriculture, Forests & Deforestation, Methane, Soil & Natural Sequestration

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter
Ending Emissions

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
276
Rachel Notley/Facebook
Jobs & Training

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
262

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
31
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
214
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
276
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
262
James Vincent Wardhaugh/flickr

Canada Sidelines Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Approves Separate Mining Project

December 4, 2022
380

Recent Posts

Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
500
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
86
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
44

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
74
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
495

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
223
Next Post

Gas Companies Say CAPP's 'One Voice' Doesn't Speak for Them

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}