This has to be one of the most misleading reports I've seen in a while and especially damaging because it's now been cited by many news outlets. It is misleading for 3 very big reasons:
1) It counts the non-edible portion of food as "waste". Consider this just in terms of bananas: About 50 billion tons of bananas are produced each year. The banana peel, not edible, is about 30% of the banana weight, which means you're already ready starting with 15 billion tons of supposed waste on bananas alone.
2) A significant amount of waste not accounted for in the underlying UN report is actually not wasted: If not suitable for human consumption it is often used in animal feed (often pig slop) or composted back into productive material for further use on the farm.
3) Even food that is well & truly wasted isn't really contributing all of its carbon or the emissions released to grow it back into the atmosphere because carbon is actually sequestered in the food itself, the same way and for the same reasons that planting new trees sequesters carbon.
I am by no means an anthropomorphic climate change denier, but sloppy studies like this do significant damage to the cause by giving such people ample ammunition by which to paint the entire body of science with the same "fake news" brush.
1) It counts the non-edible portion of food as "waste". Consider this just in terms of bananas: About 50 billion tons of bananas are produced each year. The banana peel, not edible, is about 30% of the banana weight, which means you're already ready starting with 15 billion tons of supposed waste on bananas alone.
2) A significant amount of waste not accounted for in the underlying UN report is actually not wasted: If not suitable for human consumption it is often used in animal feed (often pig slop) or composted back into productive material for further use on the farm.
3) Even food that is well & truly wasted isn't really contributing all of its carbon or the emissions released to grow it back into the atmosphere because carbon is actually sequestered in the food itself, the same way and for the same reasons that planting new trees sequesters carbon.
I am by no means an anthropomorphic climate change denier, but sloppy studies like this do significant damage to the cause by giving such people ample ammunition by which to paint the entire body of science with the same "fake news" brush.