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Add to Preferred SourcesOn the occasion of this year’s UN Sustainable Gastronomy Day, experts gathered at the Climate Change Conference in Bonn (to 27 June) to discuss the need to transform the way we produce and consume food.
More sustainable practices in the food industry and more climate-friendly dietary habits are essential to achieve the objectives of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Around a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are generated by agriculture and land use, including forestry, fisheries and livestock production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. At the same time, the effects of climate change are threatening global food security, as climate change is making it more difficult to grow adequate food for rapidly growing populations.
“The food sector is a strong lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability”, said Ovais Sarmad, Deputy Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, at the event, organized in collaboration with the food industry experts. “It’s not about targeting any particular areas of the society, consumption and markets, it’s about innovation, raising awareness and taking action”, he said.
Keeping the food systems within planetary boundaries can be achieved through the adoption of science-based targets to measure and reduce emissions from the food sector, experts stressed.
Science-based targets are increasingly gaining traction across the world, notably in the business sector. To date, 566 companies have committed to taking science-based climate action. One of them is the Swedish company IKEA, who pledged to increase the amount of plant-based food sold in its stores from the current 14% to 20% by 2022. IKEA also aims to halve food waste in its stores by August 2020.
Original source: UNFCCC
Published on 20 June 2019