Food and climate change

Overview

About a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food; global emissions average 6 kg CO2e per person per day, ranging from less than 2 kg/day in Africa to 13 kg/day in the US.

Controlling emissions to limit temperature rise cannot be achieved without a very large reduction in food related emissions. This means changes in diets and food production. How might this be done? And what can we do as individuals?

These, and other questions you want to raise, will be considered during this online session.

Our main speakers are Peter Ball (Professor of Operations Management at the University of York) and Beckie Lait (also at the University of York carrying out PhD research with fixourfood.org). They will respectively explore systems thinking behind UK farming practice (in particular, urban farming) and the carbon footprints of our food choices.

Following their introductions there will be ample time for your questions, suggestions and comments.

Good to know: the meeting will be online using the BlueJeans meetings app, allowing all users to be seen and to join the discussion.

Further reading: Professor Sarah Bridle – who gave an online talk to the Lit & Phil – sets out the problems in her book “Food and Climate Change” – a highly recommended source (and available as a free e-book).