Food and climate: the urgency of choices again pointed by the IPCC

• Tweeter

• republish

A soybean field near Santa Fe, Argentina. Getty Images / Silvina Parma

The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes a new special report on Thursday. In this document, recommendations to reduce global warming and profoundly change the management of land, agricultural production and food. Time is running out, while global warming is already reaching 1.53 ° C (oceans included). From 2 ° C of global warming, climate-related food crises will be more severe and more numerous according to the IPCC.

Scientists advocate a complete overhaul of land use and a reduction in meat consumption. Intensive farming results in drastic deforestation for the benefit of fodder plants to feed livestock. We are thinking of the massive mass logging of forests in Brazil or in the Paraguayan and Argentine Chaco.

It is this vicious circle that the IPCC experts highlight in their paper . To feed us, we degrade soils with intensive agriculture and livestock farming. Once degraded, these soils accelerate global warming: the carbon that these soils no longer absorb is found in the atmosphere and therefore contributes to warming temperatures!

Land is under pressure from humans and #climatechange, and it is at the same time part of the climate solution.

See the @IPCC_CH PRESS RELEASE on the Special Report on Climate Change and Land released today at https://t.co/ttKnS8dIoa #SRCCL pic.twitter.com/WhydvA7zAk

" We humans have an impact on 70% of the ice-free land and a quarter of this land is in bad shape," said climate scientist Valérie Masson Delmotte , co-chair of the IPCC, opening remarks. The way we produce our food contributes to declining ecosystems and biodiversity, and when soils are degraded, they absorb less carbon . "

80% of deforestation is generated by agriculture. Industrial farming and soybean cultivation for animal feed are among the main vectors of this deforestation. Let's change the food system. #GIEC #forestsarelife #ElevageVert https://t.co/407cnqiEkm pic.twitter.com/BNPpvGzPe9

Among the leads advanced by the IPCC, the reduction of our meat consumption by 50% ... and even 90% in some countries of Western Europe and the United States, the largest consumers.

We must also focus on plant-based foods, legumes such as lentils, or nuts, and most importantly, reduce food waste since currently 30% of global agricultural production ends up in the trash.

The delegations of the 195 member countries of the IPCC have been meeting since Friday to review this special document from the United Nations (UN) climate experts on "Climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable management of climate change. land, food security and the flow of greenhouse gases into terrestrial ecosystems ".

► See also : The fight against global warming goes through our plates, on the front page of the press review