Sir, – Prof Michael Hamell (July 20th) calls for Ireland to develop a climate and agriculture strategy to complement Food Wise 2025, the current 10-year vision document for the Irish agri-food industry. This is a good suggestion but does not directly address one of the key issues – the impact of agri-food policy and climate change on population health. Population health should now be front and centre in discussion and policy development in relation to both agriculture and climate change.
Climate change is now recognised as the single most important global health threat of the 21st century. Paradoxically, however the measures required to mitigate climate change have enormous potential for positive impacts on health. In the report from the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change, it was suggested that tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century.
The effects of climate change on health are already evident, both direct effects such as extreme weather events and a host of indirect effects, including air pollution, decreased water quality and ecological change. Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed to prevent dangerous and potentially catastrophic climate change before the end of this century. Greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector account for over 20 per cent of global total emissions. Livestock production (including transport of livestock and feed) accounts for nearly 80 per cent of the sector’s emissions. Methane and nitrous oxide (both closely associated with livestock production) are of particular importance in averting catastrophic climate change. The latter greenhouse gases are categorised as “short-lived climate pollutants”, potent greenhouse gases which produce a greater global warming effect than carbon dioxide but remain in the atmosphere for a relatively short time.
Mitigation of these greenhouse gases is now an urgent priority as it could curb global warming in the near term.
The promotion of healthy plant-based diets with reduced meat consumption combined with policy measures to promote active and mass transport (walking, cycling and public transport) will impact directly and rapidly on both the level of short-lived climate pollutants and the population burden of obesity and related chronic disease. There is a potential “win-win” for society here if we can draw on the collective expertise of the agri-food, environmental and health sectors. The issue is not simply one of asking the farming community and agri-food sector to bear the brunt of Ireland’s response to global climate change. We need to ensure that discussion and policy development on agriculture and climate change are appropriately framed.
Health puts a human face on the challenge of climate change. Indeed, it is now clear that when climate change is framed as a health issue, rather than purely as an environmental, economic, or technological challenge, we face a predicament that strikes at the heart of humanity. – Yours, etc,
IVAN J PERRY, MD, PhD
Professor of Public Health,
University College Cork.
Sir, – Dave Kiernan (July 20th) laments that rapid human population growth is never discussed as part of the climate change debate and, while we sidestep that issue, farmers are supposed to take the hit. What he fails to mention is that feeding the same rapidly growing population is posited as a key part of the very rationale for expanding Irish agricultural production. You can’t have it both ways. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.