“We have to stop destroying the planet as we feed ourselves,” a World Bank official said, as red meat and dairy drive CO2 emissions.
Cows and milk are out, chicken and broccoli are in — if the World Bank has its way, that is.
In a new paper, the international financial lender suggests repurposing the billions rich countries spend to boost CO2-rich products like red meat and dairy for more climate-friendly options like poultry, fruits and vegetables. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to save the planet from climate change, the bank argues.
The politically touchy recommendation — sure to make certain conservatives and European countries apoplectic — is one of several suggestions the World Bank offers to cut climate-harming pollution from the agricultural and food sectors, which are responsible for nearly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
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The paper comes at a diplomatically strategic moment, as countries signed on to the Paris Agreement — the global pact calling to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — prepare to update their climate plans by late 2025.
There are 2 necessary changes as layers in this context:
There are also studies that show the GHGs for “rich people’s investments”. This is important because they are in the way of necessary adaptation and mitigation. We can’t do anything meaningful about climate and biosphere because that would require ending profiteering from planetary destruction, it would require decommodification.
Rich people’s consumption is excessive for anything. Not just their carbon footprint, but their ecological footprint. But they are a small minority, especially the richest. Being a small minority means that if they lose their… wealth and become wage workers, that’s going mean only a decrease of 15% GHGs. This 15% is not meaningful to avert ruining the planet’s surface. We need more than 100% (zero emissions and then removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere). This means that EVERYONE has to participate, which also means that we need cooperation. And you don’t have cooperation in a capitalist class society with all this “rat race” going on, you can’t, we’re literally all enemies (competitors) in this game.
That’s one side of it, yes. To have any meaningful action, all sides of economic activity have to change, we need decreases in production (supply), but also in demand (consumption). If only production decreases, the demand side goes nuts and there’s hyperinflation and other problems. If only demand decreases (unlikely), the production side, which is owned by rich people, may decide to force and coerce an increase in demand somehow, as has been happening at least since the end of WW2.
Here, a game: https://play.half.earth/