Climate Change, Agriculture, and Meat consumption

Abstract

The Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL), was recently adopted at the 50th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at Geneva. Subsequent to the release of the report, a growing number of policy makers and international commentators have called for widespread changes to how we deal with the question of agriculture and climate change. These measures include reducing GHG emissions in agriculture and changing dietary habits (reducing meat consumption and food wastage). This talk analyses the basis of such recommendations made within the SRCCL, in terms of existing empirical evidence, methodological concerns in analysis, and its larger policy implications for the developing world.

By doing so it highlights three broad concerns. The first is that with regards to agriculture and climate change, this report provides a basis for a shift in global priorities from climate adaptation to climate mitigation. Secondly, the report prioritises consumption patterns and lifestyles (dietary habits) over structural transformations in agriculture as a means to deal with climate change. Finally, (and as a consequence of the first two) it undermines the question of equity, because it is the developing world, (and its working poor) who will disproportionately bear the dual burden of climate mitigation and fall in (already poor) consumption standards.

About the speaker

Aravindhan Nagarajan is Senior Lecturer at the School of Development at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. He is currently pursuing his PhD from the School of Habitat Studies at TISS, Mumbai. His research work is on industrial sustainability and plastic recycling in the unorganised sector. His other research interests include Climate Change policy, risk and uncertainty, and technological adoption