IPCC report: Plants-based diet will be kinder on the planet

What is the issue?

• A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on climate and land was released recently.
• It says that a plants-based diet will be kinder on the planet than a meat-based one. To know more about this report, click here.

Why we need to rethink the global land use?

• It is because the fight to lower the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and mitigation of climate-change impact, rests on this rethinking.
• A large part of land use is tied to human diet, from pastures for grazing of meat animals to agriculture.
• Thus, the IPCC report says a plants-based diet will be kinder on the planet than a meat-based one.
• It recommends that governments, especially the nations where meat consumption is high, to work on reducing this.

Why the report says plant-based diet is kinder?

• Land use and management, including agriculture and deforestation, contribute almost a quarter of the GHG emissions.
• Unless land is managed more sustainably, keeping global warming under 1.5^oC above pre-industrial levels is impossible.
• Deforestation for pastures to graze cattle and cattle themselves are emission-intensive and produces large amounts of methane (GHG).
• The emission foot-print of manufacturing animal-feed, water- and electricity-use in raising and slaughtering of meat animals, and processing/packaging of meat is significant.
• That’s why the report says plant-based diet present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation.

What the report projects?

• It says, by 2050, dietary changes could free up lands of about millions of square kilometres and reduce global carbon emissions by up to 8 billion tonnes annually (relative to business-as-usual).
• Due to politics and socio-cultural sensibilities associated with dietary habits, report’s authors have refrained from telling people what to eat.

What are the risks in the shifting?

• In a country like India, where rice is a staple food, pushing a plant-based diet could result in more demand for unsustainably produced rice.
• This could increase the methane emission. Already, agricultural methane emission from Rice-farming alone is about 24%.
• Nitrous oxide emissions – a potent heat-trapper, from agriculture have almost doubled since the 1960s, given fertiliser application has increased nine-fold globally.
• Besides, research by the Carnegie Mellon University shows that, without reducing caloric intake significantly, simply changing to plant-based diet will increase GHG emissions and energy/water use.

Why the window to act on sustainable land use is narrowing fast and what could be done?

• Human use, already affects 60-85% of forests and 70-90% of other natural ecosystems. Soil, land and forests are major carbon sinks.
• But, with manifest climate change effects, desertification and degradation of land is becoming an ever-growing threat, and humans are responding with even more unsustainable use.
• Therefore, the IPCC report calls for stepping up efforts to keep the land productive while enhancing its carbon-absorbing capacity (Carefully calibrated plant-based diet could be one way to do this).

Source: Financial Express