The CO2 impact of transporting food is even worse than we thought…

We knew that transporting fruit, vegetables and other meats weighed heavily on the food industry’s energy bill…According to an Australian study, this item is in fact responsible for 19% of the sector’s CO2 emissions, a figure much lower than what has been calculated so far. This is our number of the day.

The blueberries were harvested in Spain. They were then transported to the Netherlands by refrigerated truck for packaging. And then there’s red fruit on the shelves of French supermarkets again… A scenario as grotesque as it is real that has a real impact on the planet, far beyond what scientists have calculated so far.

In the scientific journal Nature Food, a study from the University of Sydney (Australia) estimates that the responsibility of transport in the energy bill of food chains is up to seven times greater than previously published calculations.

Overall, when transport, production and land use are taken into account, the food industry is responsible for 30% of GHG emissions generated by human activities. Reported on this scale, the energy addition of the transport of food goods is 6%.

Worse, Germany, France, the United States and Japan are responsible for 46% of greenhouse gas emissions from food transport alone, while these countries represent only 12.5% ​​of the world’s population. The most polluting countries in this regard are China, the United States, Russia, India – “logically” because of the gigantic size of their territory.

ETX Daily Up

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