Comments on Clark et al. 2020 “Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets”, Science Vol. 370, Issue 6517, pp. 705-708, DOI: 10.1126/science.aba7357

Summary

The following is identical to the contribution published on https://www.sciencemediacenter.de/alle-angebote/research-incontext/ details/news/emissionen-aus nahrungsmittelproduktion-allein-reichen-um-15-
ziel-zu-gefaehrden/. Currently, it is available in German only. If needed you may just run them through deepl.com (https://www.deepl.com/translator). A caveat is in place: I put the answers together at very short notice and very fast – they are thus done quite “quick and dirty”. I want to emphasize that the paper Clark et al. (2020) does not specifically address organic agriculture. However, it is an important contribution to the discussion on how to reach the climate change mitigation needed for the 1.5- or 2-degree goals and which role the food system may play in this. This is clearly also of relevance for organic agriculture as well. In the context of this paper, some statements have been made against organic agriculture (e.g. by Matin Qaim on SMC, same link as given above:
“Was in der Studie zwar kurz erwähnt, aber nicht weiter ausgeführt wird ist, dass für klimafreundlichere Produktion vor allem auch neue Technologien – wie Gentechnik und Genomeditierung – wichtig sind, die hohe und stabile Erträge mit weniger chemischen Inputs ermöglichen. Ohne solche Technologien müsste die wachsende Nachfrage durch weitere Ausdehnung der Landwirtschaft in Wälder und Naturräume gedeckt werden, was zu hohen zusätzlichen Treibhausgas-Emissionen führen würde. Das bedeutet im Klartext, dass der Ökolandbau mit seinen niedrigeren Erträgen sicher nicht als Patentrezept für den Klimaschutz gelten kann.”). As a comment to this statement, I want to emphasize that Clark et al. (2020) identify a much larger GHG emissions reduction potential in dietary changes towards less animal source food than in higher yields or general efficiency increases. In combination with such changed dietary patterns, organic agriculture can well play a role in sustainable food systems without leading to higher emissions, as analysed in Muller et al. (2017) and also discussed in a comment on Smith et al. (2019)