About 15 million deaths could be avoided each year and agricultural emissions could drop by 15 per cent if people worldwide shift to healthier, predominantly plant-based diets, according to the EAT-Lancet Commission.
The commission brought together scientists worldwide to review the latest data on food’s role in human health, climate change, biodiversity, and people’s working and living conditions.
Their conclusion: without substantial changes to the food system, the worst effects of climate change will be unavoidable, even if humans successfully switch to cleaner energy.
“If we do not transition away from the unsustainable food path we’re on today, we will fail on the climate agenda, we will fail on the biodiversity agenda, we will fail on food security,” said study co-author Johan Rockström, who leads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “We’ll fail on so many pathways.”
The commission’s first report in 2019 was regarded as a “really monumental landmark study” for its willingness to take food system reform seriously while factoring in human and environmental health, said Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement in the US state of Iowa.
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