"AT A time when there is increasing talk about the move from animal- to plant-based diets, the shift, it turns out, might be worth more than a trim figure and better numbers when it comes to non-communicable diseases.

Another of the gains is likely climate security, in a world wherein many of its inhabitants, such as those of the Caribbean, are increasingly subject to oppressive heat and the attendant health scares and physical discomfort; extreme weather events, including droughts and hurricanes; as well as, among other things, threats to freshwater security, all associated with a changing climate.

Climate change, as described by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, refers to a change in climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity, such as the consumption of fossil fuels, including coal and gas, that alter the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability over comparable time periods.

“Plants will take less land and less water to produce the same nutritional unit than animals will. So if you were looking at more of a plant-based diet, it would be less pressure on land, less pressure on water. There is also the issue of reducing food waste,” noted Dr Adrian Spence of the International Centre for Environmental and Nuclear Sciences at The University of the West Indies.

He is one of the authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land and for which the Summary for Policymakers was recently released."

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