Effects of dietary changes on climte change mitigation in Japan and United States

Abstract

 The greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction measures in the agriculture, forestry and land use sector is expected to play an important role in climate change mitigaton. Although the effect of emission reduction on the production side has been analyzed, the ones on the consumption side has not yet been examined. Here, we aim to estimate the effects of GHG emission reduction efforts on the consumer side in the agricultural sector (e.g. dietary change and reduced meat consumption) in Japan and the United States. The results show that by changing a diet with taking nutrition and the environment into consideration, the GHG emissions of 13.3 MtCO_2eq/year (equivalent to 46% of emissions at the levels without climate mitigation) and 306 MtCO_2eq/year (equivalent to 60%) can be reduced in Japan and the United States respectively in 2050. This suggests that the efforts of the consumer side would have comparable effect of emission reduction as the production side. Our analysis also shows that the reduction of consumption of beef and dairy products is the most effective in reducing GHG emissions among food commodities.