Climate food-print
Highest emitting foods, funding gaps and COP28 reflections
COP28 in Dubai has wrapped up with a climate deal1.
The spotlight has been mostly on fossil fuels - the first time ever the transition from them is mentioned in the final COP text.
And while there is still a lot to do to decarbonise energy and transport, by some measures, they might soon be on track to net zero by 2050.
But even if all fossil fuel emissions were halted today, the global temperature increase would still exceed 1.5-2.0°C if we do not decarbonise the food and agriculture sectors.
Food-agri is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport and almost as much as all electricity and heating.
And it won’t be easy - food is a very complex system. A lot of smart innovation and investments are required.
So let’s look into food-agri’s climate impact, which parts and products contribute the most to the problem, and the funding needed to solve it.
And at the very end, we’ll see what happened with food at COP28.
Slicing the emissions pie 🥧
It makes sense to start by asking: How large is the food-agri piece of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?
Well, it depends on who you ask.
Here are figures from some of the often-quoted sources:
24% from Project Drawdown (2023)
26% from Poore and Nemecek (2018), Science Magazine
34% from Crippa at al. (2021), Nature Food journal
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its 2019 special report, shows a very wide range of numbers - and only “medium confidence”:
Total emissions from food systems may account for 21–37% of total GHG emissions.
Why such differences?
This article by Hannah Richie explains it in detail. Hannah is deputy editor and research lead at Our World in Data and senior researcher at the University of Oxford.
Her piece is from early 2021, so I reached out to Hannah - turns out it still stands, as she has not come across any new studies since then that would change her view.
The differences between sources mostly come down to:
Food waste and cooking emissions - are they included or not
Land use - what part of deforestation is attributed to agriculture
Non-food agri products (e.g. cotton, wool, leather) - included or not
For example, a study by Monica Crippa and colleagues, published in Nature Food, includes 2.1 billion tonnes CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) for food waste and cooking. But it also assumes that all land use change (a.k.a. deforestation) is due to agriculture - and even study authors recognise that some of it has to do with urban development, mining and other human activities. Their final figure of 34% share of global GHG emissions might be slightly too high.
An earlier study from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek, published by Science Magazine, attributes a relatively conservative 60% of global deforestation to food production, and it does not include food waste and cooking at all. Hence, their final estimate, 26% share of GHG, might be on the low side.
So, while there is no precise answer, we can try to narrow the range.
Personally, I am using a 25-30% range to describe the share of food-agri in global emissions - and will be open to updating the figure if new data is published.
In her email to me, Hannah Richie mentioned a similar scope: “somewhere between a quarter and a third of global emissions” (BTW, make sure to check out her awesome climate substack and upcoming book).
The numbers mean that food and agriculture's contribution to climate change is almost on par with electricity & heating - and far ahead of transportation, even when accounting for “food miles”2.
The biggest portion 🌏
Which region contributes the most to food-agri emissions?
As you probably guessed, the largest chunk - by far - comes from Asia Pacific.
It is 44% of global food-agri GHG, according to FAO.
That compares to Americas’ 26%, Africa’s 18% and Europe’s 12% share.
Looking deeper, however, reveals a vast variance in the emission mix between parts of APAC.
A recent report from PwC, Rabobank and Temasek titled The Asia Food Challenge highlighted some of those contrasts:
Food-agri is responsible for 50% of all emissions in South Asia and 45% in South East Asia, while only 18% in China, as other industries like manufacturing and energy contribute to the lion's share of GHG there.
And it is as little as 4% in Japan.3
Favourite food-print 🥩 🥓 🍫 🍚
I have some not-so-great news - although it is hardly news for my regular readers: it turns out that many of our favourite foods and staples are the ones with the highest climate footprint.
Here is the data from the previously mentioned Poore and Nemecek (2018) study, which looked into some of the foods and their emissions per kg of product:
You will notice that the top of the list is dominated by animal products - but it also includes chocolate, coffee and even rice (more on that later).
Beef, lamb, mutton and cheese come first. Seafood, pork, poultry and eggs are all pretty high up as well, while most veggies and fruit have the lowest footprint.
A report published during COP28 by the UN Environment Programme estimates that animal products are responsible for almost 60% of food-related emissions.
Here is another visualisation from Our World in Data based on the Poore and Nemecek (2018) study. It helps to understand which parts of food production contribute to GHG emissions:
How about Asia? The previously mentioned analysis from PwC, Temasek and Rabobank looked into sources of food-agri emissions in the region.
Meat and dairy (combined) is again the top contributor, despite poultry being excluded. And rice cultivation comes not far behind:
Let’s pause here to explain how food and agriculture - including animal products and rice - have such a significant climate footprint.
It has a lot to do with the other greenhouse gas: methane.
While carbon dioxide is the best-known GHG, it is not the most potent one. Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of CO2 over the first 20 years. It stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time - decades compared to centuries for carbon dioxide.
To help measure the long-term effects of greenhouse gases with different life spans, a system called GWP (global warming potential) has been developed. It helps to narrow it down to a single metric: CO2e or carbon dioxide equivalent.
The IPCC has indicated a GWP for methane between 84-87 when considering its impact over a 20-year timeframe (GWP20) and between 28-36 when considering its impact over a 100-year timeframe (GWP100). This means that one tonne of methane is equivalent to 28 to 36 tonnes of CO2 if looking at its impact over 100 years.
Many of you would know that animals emit methane through manure and in case of cattle, burping as they digest a tough plant material like grass or hay.
How about rice? Flooded rice paddies prevent oxygen from penetrating the soil, creating ideal conditions for methane-emitting bacteria.
In fact, rice cultivation contributes to as much as 10-12% of all methane emissions. In CO2e terms, it is comparable to the entire global aviation sector!
At the same time, rice is a key staple, providing a staggering one-fifth of all calories consumed by humans globally. And over 90% of rice is grown here in Asia.
Decarbonising rice cultivation is a fascinating topic. Turns out we have at least some solutions (just google ‘rice + AWD’). It deserves a dedicated deep dive, which I am planning to write in the near future. Let me know if you are working on it or if you know someone who is. I’d love to feature folks trying to solve the rice emissions.
As for solutions for meat, dairy and other animal products, I covered them extensively in previous substack pieces.
If you need a refresher or primer, that brand new UN report titled What’s cooking? is a solid overview of novel plant-based, cultivated meat and fermentation-derived alternatives and their potential in lowering GHG emissions.
And there is so much more to explore. Fertiliser is a major source of another very potent GHG - nitrous oxide. Deforestation (often hidden behind “land use” term) for cattle, but also palm oil and other crops. Food waste, not just from consumers but across the supply chain. I am planning to do more deep dives into those topics next year, so make sure you subscribe if you are curious.
Funding gaps 💸
With food-agri such a significant contributor to emissions (25-30%), startups innovating in the sector are surely receiving a large part of climate tech funding, right?
Not quite.
PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2023 shows that in the last decade, only 10% of climate tech dollars went to the food-agri sector. And even less, at 8%, in the last year4.
Energy and transport startups get the lion’s share of funding, while hard-to-decarbonise sectors, including industry, built environment and food-agri, receive disproportionally smaller chunks.
The gap is even more striking when looking beyond VC/startup climate funding and including large infrastructure finance:
Last but not least, there is also a regional funding gap: according to AgFunder, from about $30 billion in food-agri tech startup funding in 2022, less than 22% went to Asia Pacific startups. And as I covered previously, APAC’s share in global food-agri emissions is close to 44%.
And according to PwC, Rabobank and Temasek, in Asia, investing in food-agri might be the best “bang for the buck”, when it comes to curbing emissions: 3x more efficient than investment in energy systems and as much as 45x more efficient than aviation.
Technology innovation proved to be a crucial part of decarbonisation so far, with solar and EVs the most obvious success stories. These funding gaps must be closed if we want to have a shot at tackling food-agri emissions.
COP-in or COP-out? 🇦🇪
As promised, I wanted to end with some reflections on the food-agri at COP28 in Dubai.
COP became this massive everything everywhere all at once type of event with over 80,000 visitors, only a tiny part of which are directly involved in climate negotiations. And, of course more news than anyone can digest.
NYT claims the summit “started to crack the tough nut” of food emissions.
It certainly seems like food and agriculture have been more prominent this time.
From high-profile pledges, a dedicated pavilion and food-agri day, food climate finance commitments of over $7B, new reports (many, many, so many reports), countless discussion panels, to announcements from food tech startups (including some from our Better Bite Ventures portfolio) and investors.
It is also symbolic that after years of criticism, the food served at this COP was finally mostly meatless.
But how much substance is there behind all those talks and documents?
I reached out to a friend, a founder & editor-in-chief of Green Queen Media, Sonalie Figueiras to get her perspective. Sonalie has spent a few days in Dubai at COP. She has also been tracking food-agri related announcements in daily COP28 briefings.
Sonalie said it is “encouraging” that “food system change is finally part of the climate change discussion after decades of getting no billing”.
However, according to her, no specific commitments were made nor consensus achieved on “areas like the need for reduced meat consumption in the Global North countries”.
She was “particularly disappointed“ that the final Global Stocktake (GST) document “barely mentions food systems and offers no action plan”5.
Sonalie also got to witness some of the political process first hand when on COP28’s dedicated Food Day, Minister of Agriculture from Rwanda - speaking after ministers from France, Germany, Fiji and the US - went off script and in a powerful message called for food systems to be more prominently included in COP’s roadmap to 1.5°C.
The final deal document refers to food systems in the context of climate resilience and food security - but does not directly call out emissions from food and agriculture. Accelerating methane reduction by 2030 is mentioned but with no clear food-agri connection.
The potentially more consequential food-related initiative is the COP28 UAE Declaration on Agriculture, Food Systems and Climate Action, signed by over 150 countries (notably without India). It is non-binding, but signatories agreed to integrate food-agri in national climate plans, food emissions are explicitly mentioned and there is a timeline - by COP30 in 2025.
UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also released its 1.5°C roadmap with the same COP30 timeline for food-agri "country action plans”.
Miriam Almheiri, COP28 Food Systems Lead and UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, believes that “food systems will now be center stage in all future COPs”.
Hopefully, she is right - and thanks to the declaration and the roadmap, at minimum food should remain in focus for the next two gatherings, in Azerbaijan and Brazil.
Another statement by Almheiri feels like a good closing for this piece:
Even if you were able to fix the just energy transition and go completely renewable, you still wouldn’t be able to reach the 1.5 degrees if you don’t solve the food systems issue.
The original version of this article was written just before the climate deal was achieved; I added a few updates since then.
Note on double-counting: 25-30% share of emissions mentioned here includes the supply chain, which means some energy generation (e.g. food processing and packaging) and transport is included. The studies I mentioned attribute less than a fifth of total food-related emissions to the supply chain.
Country and sub-region data most likely only includes agriculture production without food supply chain emissions and food waste.
PwC report might be missing some of the China food-agri funding data.
Originally this paragraph referred to final draft - but since then it became an official document.
Fantastic summary and great links. I first heard about food emissions at the Copenhagen COP, but only from a cow and a chicken that were giving out flyers at the metro station. Inside those costumes were women sent by a Vietnamese(?) guru. They had read "Goodland, R. and Anhang, J. (2009) Livestock and Climate Change", which argued that over half of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions were due to livestock agriculture. This article was making a business case for more plant-based foods and its appeal to industry and consumers alike and was the inspiration for the Impossible and Beyond founders.