Impact of Personal Diet on CO2

On December 12th, 2015, 174 nations and the European Union agreed upon the Paris Agreement to respond to climate change. The agreement read that those who signed will work to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. However, CO2 levels are rising 2 percent annually, and little to no work is being done to decrease or suppress the rising CO2 levels. Ultimately, the reason behind the stuttered progress to stop global warming may be because of the lack of participation from individuals. While it is hard to convince every individual to commit something new to the world, suggesting changing some parts of their life such as diet habits would be much easier and more effective for carbon neutrality. To reach the goal of carbon net zero, individuals should consume local food, homemade food, and cultured meat.
Even if locally produced foods may not be appealing to consumers by reasons of price or availability, reducing the consumption of non-local foods, which travel hundreds of miles to be on our dinner table, will contribute significantly to achieving carbon net zero. As reported by the Korean Import Inspection Management Division reported that about 19,500,762 tons of food have been imported to Korea through 802,201 deliveries. Each import would require transport by planes and trucks, which emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Planes emit an average of 1.46 kg of carbon dioxide for every 10 km. This means that a single import of food from the U.S.A. to Korea will produce about 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide only from the flight. Some foods are also transported by ships, which also produce a lot of CO2. It produces about 0.03kg of carbon dioxide for shipping 2kg of package for 1000 km. Therefore, to avoid the emission of unnecessary carbon dioxide, citizens can prevent this by consuming locally produced products.
Next, the decrease of plastic usage in packaging can significantly contribute to the decrease of carbon emissions globally. In Korea, at least one plastic bag (more than one depending on the food) comes with the food for convenient carriage and to prevent food leakage during delivery. Most of the time, they use single-use plastic bags. The carbon footprint of this convenient item is 1.58kg, which is even more emission than that of motorcycles per 10 km. According to CO2 everything, strongly reusable plastic and basic reusable plastic have a carbon footprint of 21.52kg and 6.92kg, respectively. At first glance, those statistics might seem like a large number. However, using reusable plastic bags for shopping would produce less carbon footprint than non-reusable plastic bags. Individuals would simply use substantially more non-reusable plastic bags than reusable ones.
Along with the improvements in technology, how individuals consume meat should also change. Due to the maintenance of good conditions for the animals, consuming meat emits an unexpectedly large amount of CO2, 15.5 kg for only 100 grams of meat. Also, individuals are frequently more attracted to meat rather than other foods. Therefore, immeasurable amounts of meat consumption are occurring around the world. This consumption of agricultural meats is very detrimental to the environment, especially due to CO2. Recently, several firms have acknowledged the problem and have begun to develop cultured meat. This new way of producing meat doesn’t require actual livestock. Instead, the scientists use cells of the animals and culture them to create meat. Because this method doesn’t need an immense amount of land and maintenance, it produces less CO2. As of right now, cultured meats are too expensive. However, considering that cultured chicken from Upside Foods got FDA approval and many market experts speculate that the market value of cultured meat will be $2.1 billion by 2033 and eventually reach $13.7 billion by 2043, individuals’ obligation to consume them will be very important to reduce carbon emission. When agricultural meats are replaced with cultured meats with the support of individuals, the world will be one step closer to reaching carbon net zero.
In summary, a change in diet habits is necessary for the reduction of carbon emissions. Since eating is a daily necessity of human life, it requires an immense amount of resources that emit CO2. Nonetheless, it can also mean that even slight positive changes in diet habits can have a great impact on the environment. Among the thousands of changes that individuals can make, eating local grocery foods and cultured meat will contribute most to reaching net zero. Since these new diet habits can reduce Carbon with relatively less effort, individuals should make these changes.