“We have to give these peoples not just land rights, but the resources to protect those lands,” she added.
The report also tackles head-on the political hot potato of how to change human behaviour in ways that will reduce our carbon footprint — cutting back on travel, using public transportation, switching to electric vehicles.
Too much beef
But it is revamping our diets that would have the biggest impact of all.
“Even bigger emissions can come from producing and consuming less meat,” especially beef, said Teresa Anderson, climate change policy officer for ActionAid International.
A study published in Nature last week calculated that rich nations would have to eat 90 percent less meat by 2050 to sustainably accomodate a projected global population of 10 billion people.
The report notes that only six countries — The United States, Brazil, China, Canada, Argentina, Australia — and the European Union produce and export the lion’s share of beef, chicken and pork worldwide.
Livestock farming poses a double climate threat, driving the loss of forests to make way for grazing land and generating huge amounts of methane, which is 25 times more potent than CO2.
Reducing food waste — estimated at more than 30 percent worldwide — by half could cut CO2 pollution by half-a-billion tonnes, more than one percent of total emissions. It could also help feed some of the billion people who go to bed hungry every night, the report notes.
But hitting that target remains a deceptively difficult, especially in the developing world, experts say.