11 minute read
Updated on Tuesday, March 12, 2024
How can you, as an individual, contribute to solving climate change? Can the actions of one person really make a difference to our planet?
In this course, we will be exploring the ways in which an individual can reduce their carbon emissions and consider how effective such actions will be in our fight to solve climate change. First of all, let's look at how what we eat impacts the world around us.
Our diet has a big influence on climate change, as 25-30% of global human-made greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and distribution of food (varies depending on how it’s measured and if you include energy or land use change).
The following pie chart breaks down the greenhouse gas emissions released by global food production} each year:
Click to enlarge
Food production emissions split by sectors
(The supply chain section includes food processing (converting produce from the farm into final products), transport, selling in stores and packaging.)
Different foods produce different amounts of greenhouse gas, so it makes sense that changing our diets can have a positive impact on our emissions. For example, did you know that, on average, eating 100g of protein from beef produces around 190 times more greenhouse gas than eating 100g of protein from nuts?
