Counting Your Carbon Footprint One Meal At a Time

At the COP26 conference this year, there’s a lot of grumbling among activists that official venues are serving meat, even if it’s locally-sourced meat. Animal agriculture has an outsized impact on global warming—up to 14.5% of annual global CO2 emissions, depending on which metrics you include. But here in Glasgow, a serving of meat also comes with a lesson in carbon footprint economics. Attendees here at COP26 are now informed of the carbon impact of their meals as they peruse the menus. At one restaurant, I was offered a choice between the traditional Scottish meal of haggis, neeps and tatties (stuffed, baked sheep stomach, served with turnips and potatoes); fish and chips; a pearl barley and root vegetable hot pot; or Scotch beef ramen with sustainably sourced local seaweed. I was tempted by the haggis (3.4 kg of CO2), because I’ve never tried it before, but the large carbon footprint made me pause. Was my curiosity worth the extra 3.3 kg of CO2 the haggis cost, compared to the hotpot’s 0.1 kg? Overall, the food we eat accounts for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. The online menu helpfully informed me that according to the World Wildlife Federation, we need to get the carbon footprint of our individual meals down to 0.5 kg CO2 on average in order to reach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Read More: The Cow That Could Feed the ...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Climate Is Everything Source Type: news