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Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend

Nature Food volume 3, pages 29–37 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

A dietary shift from animal-based foods to plant-based foods in high-income nations could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from direct agricultural production and increase carbon sequestration if resulting spared land was restored to its antecedent natural vegetation. We estimate this double effect by simulating the adoption of the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet by 54 high-income nations representing 68% of global gross domestic product and 17% of population. Our results show that such dietary change could reduce annual agricultural production emissions of high-income nations’ diets by 61% while sequestering as much as 98.3 (55.6–143.7) GtCO2 equivalent, equal to approximately 14 years of current global agricultural emissions until natural vegetation matures. This amount could potentially fulfil high-income nations’ future sum of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) obligations under the principle of equal per capita CDR responsibilities. Linking land, food, climate and public health policy will be vital to harnessing the opportunities of a double climate dividend.

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Fig. 1: Changes in net carbon sequestration and net GHG emissions due to dietary change in high-income countries.
Fig. 2: Potential sequestration and emissions changes due to dietary changes.
Fig. 3: Potential carbon sequestration and emissions changes due to removal of non-EAT–Lancet food items.

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Data availability

All generated data are available in the main text or the supplementary materials. Secondary data used in this study are all from publicly available sources and referenced in the Methods section. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

All codes used in the analysis are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Ramankutty and L. L. Sloat for providing us the latest pastureland map data in the year 2010. The contribution of Z.S. was funded by the China Scholarship Council (201706040080). The contribution of M.B. was funded by the European Research Council (grant agreement number 725525) and the Austrian Science Fund (project number P 31598_G31). The contribution of S.A.S.-L. to this work was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant no. DGE-1747503. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Zhongxiao Sun, Laura Scherer, Arnold Tukker & Paul Behrens

  2. College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

    Zhongxiao Sun

  3. The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO, The Hague, the Netherlands

    Arnold Tukker

  4. Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Seth A. Spawn-Lee & Holly K. Gibbs

  5. Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Seth A. Spawn-Lee & Holly K. Gibbs

  6. Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

    Martin Bruckner

  7. Leiden University College The Hague, The Hague, the Netherlands

    Paul Behrens

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  1. Zhongxiao Sun
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Contributions

All authors provided input into the final manuscript. P.B. designed the study. Z.S., S.A.S.-L. and M.B. contributed data. Z.S. performed the analysis with the help of P.B. and L.S. Z.S., L.S. and P.B. led the writing with contributions by A.T., S.A.S.-L., M.B. and H.K.G.

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Correspondence to Zhongxiao Sun.

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Nature Food thanks Manfred Lenzen, Rylie Pelton, Christian Reynolds, Michael Clark and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Discussion and Figs. 1–11.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Tables

Supplementary Table 1: crop-specific parameters used to calculate AGBC and BGBC. Supplementary Table 2: mapping relationship between FABIO sectors and EAT–Lancet diet groups. Supplementary Table 3: food and energy composition of the EAT–Lancet diet. Supplementary Table 4: country code and ISO3 for countries of FABIO. Supplementary Table 5: mapping relationship of countries between FABIO and the International Fertilizer Association (IFA). Supplementary Table 6: mapping relationship of crops between FABIO and IFA. Supplementary Table 7: mapping relationship of countries between FABIO and environmentally extended input–output database (EXIOBASE). Supplementary Table 8: mapping relationship of sectors between FABIO and EXIOBASE. Supplementary Table 9: Per capita daily food difference between national average diet and EAT–Lancet diet. Supplementary Table 10: time horizon to PNV from existing studies. Supplementary Table 11: percentage of carbon sequestration due to dietary change fulfilling national CDR obligations in high-income countries.

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Sun, Z., Scherer, L., Tukker, A. et al. Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend. Nat Food 3, 29–37 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00431-5

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