Rice cultivation represents 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, against 3% for air transport.
But our columnist Fanny Agostine relativizes this figure by the social utility of rice growing.
It is an astonishing figure: rice cultivation pollutes more than air transport. But our columnist Fanny Agostini invites us to put this data into perspective, Tuesday on Europe 1.
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"One might think that it is a hazardous comparison at first glance, and well no! I dare to compare rice and planes to put things in perspective a little and understand that the cultivation of rice in the world represents 4% of greenhouse gas emissions. Rice fields are in fact areas of stagnant water that emit a lot of methane. If we compare these emissions linked to rice cultivation to those of air traffic, we understand that air transport weighs one point. a lower percentage, ie 3% of global emissions In the end, eating rice has more impact on global warming than all our air journeys.
The social utility of rice cultivation
But we have to distinguish between greenhouse gas emissions and those that are not.
The researcher and member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) François Gemenne has a very interesting approach to this subject.
According to him, it is important to sort the greenhouse gas emissions according to their social utility: rice, if we take this example, will be used to feed millions of people, so difficult to do without it then. that for other sectors such as aviation, there, emissions are negotiable.
According to François Gemenne, we must think sector by sector.
As for our mobility by plane, here too we have to make a ranking.
We can understand that there is a big difference in terms of social utility between someone who takes the plane 20 times a year to go for a weekend sometimes in New York, sometimes in Venice and the student who is flying for the first time in his life to go to an Erasmus program in a European country and learn a new language.
The plane, reserved for a minority of humanity
For François Gemenne, it is also very important to bear in mind that the plane is now only reserved for a minority of humanity: only 15% of humans take the plane.
At the same time, our mobility must move towards clean technologies but this cannot be done all at once.
Airlines, for example, are not going to change all of their fleets overnight.
When an airplane is built, it is for a period of 20 to 30 years.
It will therefore take a little time for clean energies such as hydrogen to become widespread.
The mistake we should not fall into is to say that clean mobility is initially too expensive for the less well-off to have access to it.
The stake for tomorrow is to avoid that the fact of not polluting becomes a privilege of the rich and comes to make even more guilty those who do not have the means. "