Summary:
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The report finds that food cold chains are essential if we want to feed two billion more people by 2050, make rural communities more resilient, and keep greenhouse gas emissions from rising.
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The report says that developing countries could save 144 million tonnes of food each year if they had the same infrastructure for the cold food chain as developed countries.
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The cold food chain is responsible for about 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
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Sustainable food cold chains are already making a difference, as shown by projects all over the world.
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Recommendations for people who make decisions to make global food cold chains more sustainable, the report makes several suggestions for governments and other interested parties, such as: Taking a whole-systems approach to provide the food cold chain and realizing that just providing cooling technologies is not enough.
More than 3 billion people don’t have enough money to eat well; If there isn’t enough refrigeration, 526 million tonnes of food, or 12 percent of the world’s total, will go to waste. If developing countries had the same level of food cold chain infrastructure as developed countries, they could save 144 million tonnes of food each year.
As food insecurity and global warming get worse, the UN said today that governments, international development partners, and businesses should invest in sustainable food cold chains to reduce hunger, help communities make a living, and adapt to climate change.
Sustainable Food Cold Chains, a report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), was released today at the 27th Climate Change Conference. The report finds that food cold chains are very important if we want to feed two billion more people by 2050, make rural communities more resilient, and keep greenhouse gas emissions from going up.
The report was made with the help of FAO, the Ozone Secretariat, the UNEP OzonAction Programme, and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. The Cool Coalition is led by UNEP.
“Sustainable food cold chains can make a huge difference at a time when the international community needs to act to solve the climate and food crises,” said Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of UNEP. “They let us reduce food waste, improve food security, slow the release of greenhouse gases, create jobs, reduce poverty, and make people more resilient all at once.”
The lack of food is getting worse.
The number of people affected by hunger in the world rose to 828 million in 2021, a year-on-year rise of 46 million.
In 2020, almost 3.1 billion people would not be able to afford a healthy diet, which is 112 million more than in 2019. This is because the effects of the Covid pandemic on the economy caused inflation to rise. This year, on the other hand, the fighting in Ukraine has caused the prices of basic grains to go up, which threatens the security of food supplies.
All of this is happening while about 14% of the food made for people to eat is lost before it gets to the consumer. One of the main reasons food goes to waste is that there isn’t a good cold chain to keep food fresh, safe, and full of nutrients.
The report says that developing countries could save 144 million tonnes of food each year if they had the same level of infrastructure for the food cold chain as developed countries.
As food loss after harvest cuts 470 million small farmers’ incomes by 15%, mostly in developing countries. Investing in food cold chains that can last would help these farm families get out of poverty.
“Food cold chains that are sustainable can make a big difference in our efforts to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said, “All stakeholders can help implement the report’s findings to make agri-food systems more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable. This will lead to better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life for everyone, leaving no one behind.”
Climate impact
Climate change and the environment are in danger because of the food cold chain. In 2017, the loss and waste of food due to lack of refrigeration was estimated to be equal to 1 gigatonne of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is about 2% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
In particular, it adds to the release of methane, which is a strong but short-lived greenhouse gas. Taking action now would help reduce the amount of methane in the atmosphere this decade.
Overall, the food cold chain is responsible for about 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions around the world. This includes both the emissions from cold chain technologies and the food loss that happens when there isn’t enough refrigeration.
Losing food also hurts the environment because it forces farmers to use more land and resources like water, fossil fuels, and energy than they need.
Climate change could be helped by reducing food loss and waste, but only if the new cooling infrastructure is made to use gases with low global warming potential, save energy, and run on renewable energy.
The adoption of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol and the Rome Declaration on “the contribution of the Montreal Protocol to sustainable cold chain development for reducing food waste” offer a unique chance to speed up the deployment of sustainable food cold chains.
Progress being made
Sustainable food cold chains are already making a difference, as shown by projects all over the world. In India, a pilot project for the food cold chain cut losses of kiwi fruit by 76%. This was done by increasing the use of refrigerated transport and lowering emissions at the same time.
In Nigeria, a project that put in 54 workings ColdHubs kept 42,024 tonnes of food from going bad and doubled the income of 5,240 small-scale farmers, retailers, and wholesalers.
But these projects, which are shown in the new report along with many other case studies, are still the exception and not the rule.
Recommendations for people who make decisions
To make global food cold chains more sustainable, the report makes a number of suggestions for governments and other interested parties, such as:
- Take a whole-systems approach to provide the food cold chain, and realize that just providing cooling technologies is not enough.
- Find ways to cut down on the amount of energy used and greenhouse gases released by food cold chains that are already in place.
- Work together to assess the needs of the food cold chain and come up with National Cooling Action Plans that include specific actions and funding.
- Set and enforce high minimum efficiency standards and use monitoring and enforcement to stop illegal imports of food cold chain equipment and refrigerants that aren’t as efficient.
- Run system demonstrations on a large scale to show the benefits of sustainable cold chains and how interventions can be used to create scalable solutions that are both sustainable and resilient.
Set up national or regional multidisciplinary centers to improve the cold chain for food.
It is distributed by APO Group on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
APO has issued this Press Release. The content is not monitored by the editorial team of AUN News, and not of the content has been checked or validated by our editorial, proofreaders, or fact-checkers. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Analysis by: Advocacy Unified Network
