How our agricultural practices and deforestation are altering our climate and threatening food security for people and ecosystems. This is the main focus of the latest IPCC report, released yesterday in Geneva.
Delegations from the 195 member countries of the IPCC spent five days reviewing this report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
“It is essential that we rethink land use and our eating habits,” warn IPCC experts.
According to Professor Piers Forster, a climate change expert at the University of Leeds, «We need to substantially change the way we use our land» and «We need to think much more deeply about how we’re going to use every hectare.» “Land must be used to grow our food, support biodiversity and provide fresh water, provide jobs for billions of people, and capture billions of metric tons of carbon,” he summarizes.
Currently, Western countries in particular waste nearly 30% of the food produced, while 2 billion adults are overweight, with an intake of animal protein that exceeds nutritional recommendations, and furthermore, 821 million people worldwide are suffering from hunger…
One conclusion is clear: Reduce waste and meat consumption!
“At the root of this situation is an unsustainable agricultural and food system that leads to deforestation and land degradation. Between 21 % and 37 % of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the global agricultural and food system, from farm to fork. Among these greenhouse gases is nitrous oxide, a gas that is 265 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. ”82 % of nitrous oxide emissions come from land use, due in particular to the overuse of synthetic fertilizers in the industrial system: these nitrous oxide emissions have doubled in 50 years!” according to Friends of the Earth, the world's largest environmental network.
However, in the face of the threat of food insecurity, alternative solutions are emerging everywhere; we discuss this regularly in *Martinique 2030*, and a global awakening seems to be taking shape, paving the way for the political decisions that will likely follow. For humanity is now in a state of emergency, and most policymakers do not seem to fully grasp the challenges and risks we now face.
Nathalie Laulé
