SOURCE ET SUITE
A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from
hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.
As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion
people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products
are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment
Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.
It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase
substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal
products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives:
people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be
possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal
products."
Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said:
"Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction
minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops
for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."
The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern,
former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate
change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.
The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth, they said.
Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the
panel, said: "Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards
meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's
crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and
pesticides."
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire