Impact of food trade on climate

Prof. Alan Matthews, Trinity College Dublin

The world faces the urgent challenge of stemming our rapidly increasing global temperature, as set out in the Paris Agreement, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. In June 2019, the UK parliament passed legislation requiring the government to achieve ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 – meaning our temperature-raising greenhouse gas emissions are balanced out by removing emissions from the atmosphere.  The Scottish government has set a target of ‘net zero’ by 2045, while the Welsh government is aiming for a 95% reduction in emissions by 2050 (in line with Committee on Climate Change recommendations).[i]

Agriculture and food consumption are important contributors to our greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural emissions have been broadly stable since 1990, and currently contribute around 10% of the emissions that the UK produces,[ii] but the NFU has set a target of net-zero emissions in UK farming by 2040. Food consumption (including drink and tobacco) contributes around 13% to the overall emissions that the UK consumes.[iii]  

How does food trade fit into this equation? Does trade in food make achieving climate targets more difficult? Does it give a false sense of success if domestic emissions are falling because we are importing more and transferring our emissions to some other country’s account? Is eating local food always the best choice from a climate perspective? Does trade inhibit ambitious climate action at home because of the fear that it will put the UK’s agriculture industry at an unfair disadvantage? We address these questions in this brief.

Around half of the UK’s emissions from food and agriculture are produced outside the UK.

Emissions are reported to the United Nations based on those that are produced within the UK’s borders (called territorial emissions). However, emissions can also be measured based on what we consume – rather than what we produce – which is called the UK’s ‘carbon footprint’. The difference between these measures mainly represents the emissions from trade – emissions we export are deducted from territorial emissions and emissions we import are added to it.

UK food and agriculture consumption emissions are divided about equally between domestic and imported emissions.[iv] Domestic emissions have been falling and emissions from abroad have been increasing.  This means that we are increasingly shifting our food emissions to the rest of the world.   

Trade can either reduce or increase global emissions.

We need to consume food, so the climate impact of consuming domestically-grown or imported foods depends on how many emissions they produce. Imports of foods with lower emissions can generate a global climate benefit. For example, tomatoes grown outside in the Mediterranean would have lower emissions than growing electricity-dependent greenhouse tomatoes in the UK. While substituting beef from Latin America, which has a relatively high emissions intensity compared to UK-produced beef, will increase global emissions.[v]

Is local food more climate friendly?

Even where emissions are lower in other countries, transporting food over long distances may itself lead to emissions that offset this advantage. Many consumers believe that by eating local they also are helping to reduce emissions (by reducing so-called ‘food miles’).  

The relative importance of transport emissions depends on the emissions of the food itself. For emissions-heavy products such as meat, transport emissions play a relatively small role in the carbon footprint when you buy it. For example, transport emissions account for just 5% of the total carbon footprint of New Zealand lamb in UK stores.[vi] A study of European diets concluded that food transport was responsible for only 6% of total emissions, while dairy, meat and eggs accounted for 83% of the total.[vii] There may be many reasons to eat local, but for your carbon footprint what you eat is more important than where your food is coming from.

Trade can be an important climate adaptation mechanism.

A warmer planet is expected to lead to more extreme weather such as floods, droughts and storms. Climate change is also expected to lead to more pests and diseases in countries with a temperate climate such as the UK. Food production is likely to become more unpredictable in future, with more frequent risks of harvest losses. Having a range of food supply sources, including both UK production and imports, is thus an important safety net for the weather extremes brought on by climate change. If all countries focus on local production, world food markets would be much smaller and much more volatile, if indeed they existed at all. Seeking to maintain open and diversified trade in food is an important contingency measure against the risks of climate change.

We can reduce the UK’s overseas food emissions footprint.

Imported food is not necessarily problematic from a climate perspective if those imports produce less emissions than UK grown. But this is not always the case. For example, if growing food in other countries comes with negative land use change in that country, including deforestation. There is also a risk that efforts to reduce our home-grown UK emissions mean we produce less in the UK and increase emissions in other countries. This is a phenomenon known as ‘carbon leakage,’ and it has become a potent argument against pursuing large reductions in UK agricultural emissions if this results in lower UK production.

While the UK’s legal obligations only cover our own emissions, the high and increasing share of imported food emissions points to the need for additional measures, including through trade policies. Encouraging trade partners to also reduce emissions is probably the single most important measure. But what if the actions taken by other countries are insufficient or too slow?

There are steps the UK could take to incentivise other countries to reduce the emissions associated with their goods. A sizeable proportion of imported food emissions are due to deforestation, so insisting on deforestation-free supply chains is a good place to start. Commitments to pursue ambitious targets under the Paris Agreement could be included in the UK’s free trade agreements with other countries. In the case of agreements with low-income countries, these would need to be supported by financial and technical assistance to help meet these targets. Taking responsibility for imported emissions could also help diffuse more productive methods and best practices including agroecological practices. If domestic agricultural emissions were in future subject to a carbon levy or tax, as has been suggested by some, there might be a case for a tax on imports that are not subject to a similar levy in their own country, although the practical difficulties in designing and implementing such a scheme should not be underestimated. Finally, reducing consumption of emissions-heavy products such as meat and dairy would also contribute to reducing imported emissions.

Alan Matthews is Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Email: alan.matthews@tcd.ie

[i] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/net-zero-target

[ii] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/862887/2018_Final_greenhouse_gas_emissions_statistical_release.pdf; 

[iii] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint.

[iv] http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=FINALEV0466report(2).pdf; https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-04/FINAL-WWF-UK_Carbon_Footprint_Analysis_Report_March_2020%20%28003%29.pdf

[v] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11367-013-0576-2.

[vi] https://www.mia.co.nz/assets/MIA-Publications/Greenhouse-gas-footprint-study-for-exported-NZ-lamb.-March-2010.pdf.   https://academic.oup.com/af/article/1/1/40/4638598.

[vii] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912418300361.