Back to Search
Start Over
Lifetime Climate Impacts of Diet Transitions: A Novel Climate Change Accounting Perspective
- Source :
- Sustainability, Vol 13, Iss 5568, p 5568 (2021), Sustainability, Volume 13, Issue 10
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- MDPI AG, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Dietary transitions, such as eliminating meat consumption, have been proposed as one way to reduce the climate impact of the global and regional food systems. However, it should be ensured that replacement diets are, indeed, nutritious and that climate benefits are accurately accounted for. This study uses New Zealand food consumption as a case study for exploring the cumulative climate impact of adopting the national dietary guidelines and the substitution of meat from hypothetical diets. The new GWP* metric is used as it was designed to better reflect the climate impacts of the release of methane than the de facto standard 100-year Global Warming Potential metric (GWP100). A transition at age 25 to the hypothetical dietary guideline diet reduces cumulative warming associated with diet by 7 to 9% at the 100th year compared with consuming the average New Zealand diet. The reduction in diet-related cumulative warming from the transition to a hypothetical meat-substituted diet varied between 12% and 15%. This is equivalent to reducing an average individual’s lifetime warming contribution by 2 to 4%. General improvements are achieved for nutrient intakes by adopting the dietary guidelines compared with the average New Zealand diet<br />however, the substitution of meat items results in characteristic nutrient differences, and these differences must be considered alongside changes in emission profiles.
- Subjects :
- 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
129999 Built Environment and Design not elsewhere classified
111199 Nutrition and Dietetics not elsewhere classified
Geography, Planning and Development
Climate change
TJ807-830
FOS: Health sciences
010501 environmental sciences
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
TD194-195
01 natural sciences
Article
Agricultural economics
Renewable energy sources
Nutrient
Climate impact
GE1-350
Uncategorized
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Consumption (economics)
GWP
Environmental effects of industries and plants
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
greenhouse gas emissions
dietary change
Dietary guideline
Environmental sciences
climate change
Greenhouse gas
Food systems
Environmental science
FOS: Civil engineering
Global-warming potential
New Zealand
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20711050
- Volume :
- 13
- Issue :
- 5568
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Sustainability
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1c0d13036a5a0f49db54b5b5638417c1