3 ms·

According to our world in data, it's 6% of carbon emissions, a significant chunk! https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/fo

• Karellen 4y ago
  Right, but the carbon in food comes from plants (or, comes from things that got their carbon from plants) which got their carbon out of the atmosphere from recent photosynthesis. It's carbon that's already part of the carbon cycle, which is a dynamic but overall steady-state system. Emitting carbon which recently came from the atmosphere back into the atmosphere is not a problem. Emitting carbon which has been safely stored in rocks for tens (or hundreds) of millions of years is the problem. That's the carbon that's caused the increase in CO2 from 280ppm 200 years ago, to 420ppm today, which is the driver of climate change. Nothing to do with food waste.
  • vnorilo 4y ago
    It is mostly the energy used to produce and transport the food and other required inputs (like fertilizer), not so much the gases it belches out in compost.
  • bobthepanda 4y ago
    We use a lot of petroleum to generate food; fertilizer, mechanized equipment, refrigerating & transporting said food, etc.
    • Ekaros 4y ago
      Also as food is quite a lot of water I would imagine cooking or even heating it is not very low point of consumption either. And I don't think we are very efficient with waste heat of the process.