Abstract

Significance The food system is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions while unhealthy diets and high body weight are among the greatest contributors to premature mortality. Our study provides a comparative analysis of the health and climate change benefits of global dietary changes for all major world regions. We project that health and climate change benefits will both be greater the lower the fraction of animal-sourced foods in our diets. Three quarters of all benefits occur in developing countries although the per capita impacts of dietary change would be greatest in developed countries. The monetized value of health improvements could be comparable with, and possibly larger than, the environmental benefits of the avoided damages from climate change.

Keywords

Climate changePer capitaGreenhouse gasDamagesEnvironmental healthNatural resource economicsGeographyDeveloping countryValuation (finance)Environmental protectionSocioeconomicsBusinessEconomicsMedicineEconomic growthBiologyEcologyPolitical sciencePopulation

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Publication Info

Year
2016
Type
article
Volume
113
Issue
15
Pages
4146-4151
Citations
1157
Access
Closed

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Marco Springmann, Hubert Charles, Mike Rayner et al. (2016). Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 113 (15) , 4146-4151. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523119113

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DOI
10.1073/pnas.1523119113