In the United States, governmental efforts to limit climate change have largely focused on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation and electricity, the top two sources of GHG emissions on a national level. With a few notable exceptions, American governmental entities have paid much less attention to reducing GHG emissions from agriculture or food. These are overlapping sources of emissions because many agricultural emissions are released through the process of making food for human consumption.
This Article argues that local governments are well-positioned to add food policy more squarely to their climate policy toolkit and, perhaps in so doing, to broaden the agenda of climate policy to incorporate more food policy measures. In addition, we endorse a modest, but potentially important, step which cities could take to help make the case for integrating food policy into climate policy: estimating, on a regular basis, the GHG emissions from food procured by city governments for city-funded facilities such as schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, and jails. Better data on the contributions of city government-funded consumption of food to GHG emissions might help more people understand the climate costs of food choices and set the stage for more governmental efforts to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture and food as part of climate mitigation. More immediately, better data would provide a basis for cities to commit to reducing GHG emissions from their food purchases and tracking whether they are meeting these GHG reduction commitments.
Authors: Katrina Wyman & Emma Dietz
Published in N.Y.U. Journal of Legislation & Public Policy