Context: A growing body of scientific evidence suggests our dietary habits are putting way too much pressure on the environment.
Issue

Enhancing NDCs For Food Systems Recommendations For Decision-makers, a September 2020 report by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in association with non-profits World Wildlife Fund and EAT as well as policy advisor Climate Focus BV flagged that 

• "The process that sustains 7.8 billion people also emits 21-37 per cent of all greenhouse gases a year that can be traced back to human activities".

Recent Study

• Researchers from the United Kingdom and the United States recently created an experimental model to estimate emissions from food production.
• They created a climate-utopian condition in which all sources of greenhouse gases other than food production were halted; it was a world completely shifted to renewable energy, electric vehicles, sustainable buildings and non-polluting manufacturing.

Our Food System

• It is the world’s largest production line: Starts with growing and harvesting crops, moves on to processing food, then transporting and marketing it; eventually the consumption and disposal of the waste. 
• Our food system is thus as polluting as sectors that generate electricity and heat (25 per cent of greenhouse gases emitted) and industries (21 per cent); 
• it is also more polluting than transportation (14 per cent) and buildings and energy usage (16 per cent). 
• Now, try to gauge the additional emissions as we churn out more to feed 10 billion mouths by 2050.

Key Possible Solution

• “Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts. Global consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes will have to double, and consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar will have to be reduced by more than 50 per cent.
• The study, Diets for a Better Future, has calculated the food-print of each G20 country and found that the bloc, representing 10 per cent of the countries and 64 per cent of the global population, accounts for 75 per cent of the global food-emissions.
• It says increasing consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts and lowering consumption of meat and dairy that goes beyond current national dietary guidelines (NDG) would reduce the G20 food-print to 40 per cent of the carbon budget for food. 
• However, NDGs of G20 countries will have to be ambitious enough to free up part of the carbon budget for food to create space for poor countries so that they improve diets and increase their consumption of animal-source foods to tackle undernutrition without further destroying the planet.
• A similar report by WWF in October 2020 also highlights that global cooperation would be imperative to ensure a healthy population in a healthy planet. 
• For instance, Malawi has to increase its consumption of dairy, fish, and fruits and vegetables to reduce the prevalence of under-five overweight and under-five wasting, says the report that analysed food consumption patterns in 147 countries and six regions and NDGs of 75 countries.
• This would lead to an increase in per capita emissions by 30 per cent. This can be compensated by countries like Sweden, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and France who need to reduce food-emissions. 
• Sweden’s per capita food-emissions are over double Malawi’s. To reduce it by 50 per cent, Sweden would need to reduce consumption of red meat by 90 per cent and dairy by 69 per cent, notes the report Bending the Curve: Restorative Power of Planet-Based Diets.

Both the reports, however, highlight that NDGs are not aligned with those of a healthy diet and most countries are not ambitious enough to bring food systems within planetary boundaries. While the EAT-Lancet Commission says countries will have to make an effort to mitigate the 9GtCO2e emissions outside the carbon budget for food, the WWF report says current NDGs would help reduce it only by 1Gt.

According to the September 2020 UNEP assessment

• Reducing land-use change and conversion of natural habitats alone can lower emissions by 4.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (GtCO2e) a year
• Reducing food loss and waste, which accounts for 8 per cent of anthropogenic emissions, can cut emissions by 4.5 GtCO2e
• Improving production methods and reducing methane from livestock can lower emissions by up to 1.44 GtCO2e
• A massive 8 GtCO2e reduction is possible by including a higher proportion of plant-based foods in the diet than animal-based foods.

Road Ahead

• “Dietary changes take place at the local level, so it is important to translate the global agenda into actionable national-level analysis". Working on NDGs now is crucial as over 100 countries have developed or are developing their guidelines. “So far some countries have taken the first step towards this (including planet-based diet in NDGs).  We need to identify champion countries where governments are supporting to make this change. When countries see that other countries are doing it, they would be willing to make this change.