Rarely do we acknowledge that our need for food is probably the biggest single contributor to a warming planet. If we are ever going to engage in any meaningful climate change risk mitigation, we must also address the fact that our dinners are hazardous to the environment as long as the way we grow and rear our food does not change.

Take, for instance, how livestock rearing is responsible for nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — mainly methane, most of which is released by about 1.5 billion cows. Each cow can release, on average, 30-50 gallons of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide since it traps 84 times more heat.

That is a minimum 39 billion gallons of methane released into the atmosphere every day, and should we fail to find effective mitigants that is likely to increase sharply in the next 30 years. By then, a population bump including those lifted out of poverty — thus, able to afford varied diets that include costlier meat — will probably lead to an increase in livestock populations, potentially compounding agriculture’s “methane problem.”

Apart from methane, agriculture also has a carbon dioxide problem. Traditional solutions to addressing food shortages have always involved razing forests and plowing grassland to build more farms or increase pasture. As a result, nearly 40 percent of human-modified land (about 50 million square kilometers) is used for agriculture.

In addition, crop production must outpace population growth, so a likely 35 percent increase in the world’s population by 2050 will require current crop production levels to double in order to keep the planet fed. However, at present, a little more than half of what we grow ends up on our dinner tables, leaving about 45 percent for livestock feed, biofuels and raw materials for the manufacture of industrial goods.

There is little chance of a change in that ratio since most recently cleared land for agriculture is not used to address food security. Instead, it goes to growing more cash crops, timber and creating pastureland for livestock — products that are not only out of reach for the world's 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty, but also worsen food shortages.

If we are ever going to engage in any meaningful climate change risk mitigation, we must also address the fact that our dinners are hazardous to the environment as long as the way we grow and rear our food does not change.

Hafed Al-Ghwell

Becoming more efficient in terms of what to grow, how and where, could increase food production worldwide by 58 percent. We could grow more food on what is already available without sacrificing the planet’s natural ability to absorb the most common greenhouse gas — carbon dioxide, which has already reached alarming levels.

It is not just increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that we need to worry about. The ill-conceived use of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) such as refrigerants, propellants and solvents has damaged to the planet’s ability to keep out harmful UV rays that cause sunburn, skin cancer and cataracts.

Fortunately, the relatively quick response to mitigate the harmful effects of ODSs offers a silver lining — a critical reminder that we do have the capacity to coordinate efforts to sustainably and fundamentally transform how we grow our food without harming the environment in the process. Thankfully, we already know what must be done. The only issue remains how to do it and for that there is no better blueprint than the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which led to a ban on the production of ozone-depleting chemicals. As a result, the ozone layer has since stabilized and recovered, with the credible expectation that ozone levels will return to pre-1987 levels by 2075 — making the Montreal Protocol one of the most successful international agreements on protecting the environment.

Obviously, banning CFCs is a lot different to convincing most of the world’s countries to adopt climate-friendly farming best practices; but it is a start, and the welcome results from the adoption of the Montreal Protocol are proof that when we work together, we can do a lot more than just protect the environment.

If the world is to have a chance, then for the next 30 years we need to freeze agriculture’s costly footprint, improve yields on farmable lands, use farming inputs more efficiently, reduce water and dependence on fossil-fuel-based chemicals, change diets, and reduce waste.

We must act quickly.

  • Hafed Al-Ghwell is a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is also senior adviser at the international economic consultancy Maxwell Stamp and at the geopolitical risk advisory firm Oxford Analytica, a member of the Strategic Advisory Solutions International Group in Washington DC and a former adviser to the board of the World Bank Group. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell