Thought-provoking snippets on global food crises and the climate issues in the US.
MAY 13, 2011, 8:02 AM
One-Third of World’s Food Wasted, Report Says
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
ReutersA vendor in Khartoum, Sudan, where a surge in food prices has led to hardships.
The world may be on the brink of another food crisis, but it isn’t from a lack of food.
Fully one-third of all food produced globally — a staggering 1.3 billion tons — is lost or wasted every year, a new study released on Wednesday by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization finds.
The report determined that overall food loss was divided about equally between the industrialized and developing world, although waste in rich countries was far higher on a per capita level.
In industrialized countries, food losses were most often caused by retailers and consumers who threw “perfectly edible foodstuffs” into the trash, the agency said in a statement. By contrast, losses in the developing world were driven primarily by poor infrastructure and low levels of technology in harvesting, processing and distribution.
Limiting such losses in the developing world could have an “immediate and significant” impact on food security, the study’s authors concluded.
The report comes at a time of heightened concern over global food prices, which are at or above levels not seen since the 2008 food crisis, when the soaring cost of basic commodities set off riots across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
In the last year, oil prices over $100 a barrel and crop losses due to extreme weather have driven a benchmark U.N. food price index to record highs, and have sent more than 40 million people into poverty, the World Bank said recently.
A further 10 percent climb in the index would represent another 10 million people in poverty, the agency said.
Food riots across North Africa this year are also thought to have helped set off the revolutions that overthrew governments in Egypt and Tunisia.
The F.A.O. report, which was produced by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, found opportunities to reduce food waste in the developing world all along the chain of production. Improved harvest techniques, farmer education and better storage and cooling facilities could all make a substantial difference, it concluded.
Nevertheless, the researchers found that little effort was being made to study the problem or develop solutions.
“Further research in the area is urgent, especially considering that food security is a major concern in large parts of the developing world,” they wrote.
MAY 18, 2011, 9:00 AM
You’ve Got to Start Somewhere: A Climate Prescription
By JOHN M. BRODER
Associated PressThe W.A. Parish power plant in Thompsons, Tex., which has coal- and gas-fired units.
Hoping to find a way around the current political impasse on climate change and energy policy, a former top adviser to President Obama has devised a policy proposal to drive down greenhouse gas emissions from the utility industry over the next 20 years.
The plan, “Promoting Clean Energy in the American Power Sector,” borrows from a range of policy proposals, including President Obama’s latest clean energy policy, the cap and trade plan that foundered in Congress last year, and state-level clean electricity mandates. The proposal sets goals based on emissions intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of electricity generated — an idea pursued both by the Chinese government and by former President George W. Bush.
The plan’s author, Joseph Aldy, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former White House staff member on energy and economic issues, said that his proposal could help untie the political knot that has doomed all previous attempts at a comprehensive energy and climate policy.
It would give utilities incentives for converting to cleaner forms of electricity without top-down mandates from the federal government or penalties for failure to comply.
It would require Congressional action and would take the place of Environmental Protection Agency regulation of power plant emissions, a program that has generated intense opposition from Republicans in Congress, utility companies and manufacturers. It would also pre-empt the clean energy mandates adopted by 29 states and the District of Columbia.
Mr. Aldy is presenting his plan, drawn up under the auspices of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, at a symposium in Washington on Wednesday.
The proposal would set progressively stricter standards for clean electricity, eventually reaching 0.2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour by 2035. (The current emissions intensity is nearly three times as high.) Companies that exceed their targets would be allowed to bank their credits or trade them to utilities having trouble meeting their goals.
As a last resort, high-emissions operators would be able to buy credits from the federal government, with the proceeds used to finance clean energy research or pay down the deficit.
“These goals are stretch goals,” Mr. Aldy said. “We would actually need innovation in clean energy technology to bring down the cost to reach them.”
He said that his hybrid proposal provided neither the absolute certainty about emissions reductions of a cap and trade program nor the price certainty of a carbon tax.
“We’ve been trying to get the perfect system for too long,” Mr. Aldy said. “We’ve got to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
“This is clearly not sufficient to deal with the problem of climate change in the long term, and it just focuses on one sector,” he said. “But it allows us to start sending the right signals for investment and innovation in the power sector and provides a stepping stone to a more comprehensive approach down the road.”
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