untitled

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INTEGRATING FOOD INTO LOCAL

CLIMATE POLICY

Katrina M. Wyman*

Emma Dietz**

In the United States, governmental efforts to limit climate change have

largely focused on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from trans-

portation and electricity, the top two sources of GHG emissions on a na-

tional level. With a few notable exceptions, American governmental entities

have paid much less attention to reducing GHG emissions from agriculture

or food. These are overlapping sources of emissions because many agricul-

tural emissions are released through the process of making food for human

consumption.

This Article argues that local governments are well-positioned to add

food policy more squarely to their climate policy toolkit and, perhaps in so

doing, to broaden the agenda of climate policy to incorporate more food

policy measures. In addition, we endorse a modest, but potentially impor-

tant, step which cities could take to help make the case for integrating food

policy into climate policy: estimating, on a regular basis, the GHG emis-

sions from food procured by city governments for city-funded facilities such

as schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, and jails. Better data on the contri-

butions of city government-funded consumption of food to GHG emissions

might help more people understand the climate costs of food choices and set

the stage for more governmental efforts to reduce GHG emissions from

* Katrina M. Wyman is the Sarah Herring Sorin Professor of Law at N.Y.U.

School of Law, and Co-Faculty Director of N.Y.U. Law’s Guarini Center on Environ-

mental, Energy and Land Use Law. Wyman thanks Amelia Linn for sparking Wy-

man’s interest in consumption-based greenhouse gas accounting as a tool for

measuring emissions from food. This Article also benefited from conversations with

David Allaway, Karen Cooke, Chris Jones, Jonathan Rosenbloom, and Aaron Toneys;

from comments from Danielle Spiegel-Feld and Amelia Linn; and from comments

made by panelists on a webinar on “Counting What We Consume” that Wyman mod-

erated for the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law. Sara

Savarani provided helpful research assistance. The Article emerged from a project on

what local governments can do to reduce meat and dairy consumption for which the

Guarini Center received funding from the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law &

Policy. The Article is the work of the authors, and it does not purport to represent the

views of N.Y.U., N.Y.U. Law, the Guarini Center, or the Brooks Institute, if any, on

the subject.

** Emma Dietz is a J.D. candidate at N.Y.U. School of Law (Class of 2024),

where she is concentrating in environmental law. Prior to law school, Dietz graduated

magna cum laude from Cornell University with a B.S. in Environmental Science.

Dietz thanks her family, including her parents, Jill and John Dietz, her aunt, Leslie

Abbey, and her uncle, Stephen Dietz, for supporting her education and igniting her

passion for environmentalism. Dietz also thanks Katrina Wyman for including her on

this project.

725

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726 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

agriculture and food as part of climate mitigation. More immediately, better

data would provide a basis for cities to commit to reducing GHG emissions

from their food purchases and tracking whether they are meeting these

GHG reduction commitments.

NTRODUCTION

.............................................. 726

I. T

ONNECTION

ETWEEN

GRICULTURE

, F

OOD AND

LIMATE

HANGE

................................... 731

A. Sources of Agricultural Emissions................

731

B. Calls For Shifting to Earth-Friendly Diets to

Reduce GHG Emissions .........................

734

II. W

ITIES

ELL

-P

OSITIONED TO

NTEGRATE

OOD

NTO

LIMATE

ITIGATION

OLICY

............. 737

III. A M

ODEST

ROPOSAL

: E

STIMATING

GHG E

MISSIONS

ROM

ITY

OVERNMENT

ROCURED

OOD

........... 742

A. Existing Local GHG Emission Inventories and

Food ...........................................

743

B. Adding Consumption-Based GHG Emission

Inventories? .....................................

744

C. Estimating GHG Emissions From City-Government

Procured Food ..................................

748

ONCLUSION

................................................ 757

NTRODUCTION

In the United States, governmental efforts to limit climate change

have largely focused on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

from transportation and electricity, the top two sources of national

GHG emissions.

With a few notable exceptions, governments have

paid much less attention to reducing GHG emissions from agriculture

or food.

These are overlapping sources of GHG emissions; many

emissions could be labeled either “food” or “agricultural” emissions

because many agricultural emissions are released in making food for

humans. In particular, the production of meat and dairy products for

NVT

’

ROT

. A

GENCY

, I

NVENTORY OF

U.S. G

REENHOUSE

MISSIONS AND

INKS

ES-26 tbl. ES-6 (2021) [hereinafter

NVENTORY

], https://www.epa.gov/sites/de-

fault/files/2021-04/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2021-main-text.pdf?VersionId=UUA

7i8WoMDBOc0M4ln8WVXMgn1GkujvD. [https://perma.cc/E9PZ-W3JK.]

ETER

H. L

EHNER

& N

ATHAN

A. R

OSENBERG

, F

ARMING

UTURE

: T

CIENCE

, L

AND

OLICY OF

LIMATE

-N

EUTRAL

GRICULTURE

3, 7 (2021).

See

also OECD, Climate Change and Food Systems, https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/

topics/climate-change-and-food-systems/ (“Emission reductions from food production

have so far received less attention in GHG mitigation policies than those from energy,

transport and other industrial sectors; consequently emissions from agriculture could

become the dominant source of global emissions by mid-century.”).

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 3 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 727

human consumption constitutes a significant share of agricultural

emissions.

Emissions from agriculture and food could be reduced up-

stream, meaning at the farm where food is produced, or downstream,

by persuading people living in urban areas to change the food that

they eat and to waste less food.

From one perspective, the limited governmental focus on agricul-

tural and food policy as climate policy is surprising. The Intergovern-

mental Panel on Climate Change and the World Resources Institute

have both published reports in recent years emphasizing the signifi-

cance of agriculture and food as sources of GHG emissions.

Interna-

tionally, agriculture accounts for 25% of GHG emissions; in the U.S.,

agriculture is the fifth largest source of emissions, accounting for 10%

3. See Lisa Friedman, Kendra Pierre-Louis & Somini Sengupta, The Meat Ques-

tion, by the Numbers,

N.Y. T

IMES

(Jan. 25, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/

25/climate/cows-global-warming.html (“In the United States, 42 percent of agricul-

tural emissions come from animal agriculture. Two-thirds of those gases are directly

emitted by ruminants: animals like cows, buffalo and sheep that use bacteria in their

stomachs to ferment food.”); Oliver Lazarus, Sonali McDermid & Jennifer Jacquet,

The Climate Responsibilities of Industrial Meat and Dairy Producers, 165

LIMATIC

HANGE

1, 18 (2021) (“beef production” is 40% of U.S. agricultural emissions and

roughly 3.7% of total U.S. GHG emissions); Janet Ranganathan, Daniel Vennard,

Richard Waite, Patrice Dumas, Brian Lipinski, Tim Searchinger & Globagri-WRR

Model Authors, Shifting Diets For a Sustainable Food Future, Creating a Sustainable

Food Future (World Res. Inst., Working Paper, 2016), https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-

public/Shifting_Diets_for_a_Sustainable_Food_Future_1.pdf. See also infra notes 25-

32 and accompanying text.

4. Food Waste FAQs,

U.S. D

’

TOF

GRIC

https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/

faqs (last visited Feb. 15, 2022) [https://perma.cc/XC3D-Z5R3] (“In the United States,

food waste is estimated at between 30–40 percent of the food supply.”). See also infra

note 35.

HEIKH

BOW

, C

YNTHIA

OSENZWEIG

, L

UIS

G. B

ARIONI

, T

G. B

ENTON

ARIO

ERRERO

, M

URUKESAN

RISHNAPILLAI

, E

MMA

IWENGA

, P

RAJAL

RADHAN

ARTA

G. R

IVERA

-F

ERRE

, T

APKOTA

, F

RANCESCO

N. T

UBIELLO

& Y

INLONG

Food Security, in

LIMATE

HANGE AND

AND

: A

IPCC S

PECIAL

EPORT ON

LI-

MATE

HANGE

, D

ESERTIFICATION

. L

AND

EGRADATION

, S

USTAINABLE

AND

AN-

AGEMENT

, F

OOD

ECURITY

AND

REENHOUSE

LUXES IN

ERRESTRIAL

COSYSTEMS

(Noureddine Benkeblia et al. eds., 2019) [hereinafter

IPCC F

OOD

E-

CURITY

];

EARCHINGER

, R

ICHARD

AITE

, C

RAIG

ANSON

& J

ANET

AN-

GANATHAN

ORLD

. I

NST

., C

REATING A

USTAINABLE

OOD

UTURE

: A M

ENU OF

OLUTIONS TO

EED

EARLY

10 B

ILLION

EOPLE BY

2050

(2018). See also

RENT

OKEN

, J

EFF

PPERMAN

, S

TUART

, M

ARTINA

LECKENSTEIN

, S

ARAH

ALEVY

ETER

EELY

, S

ARAH

ARK

& C

HRISTOPHER

EBER

, W

ORLD

ILDLIFE

UND

ENDING THE

URVE

: T

ESTORATIVE

OWER OF

LANET

-B

ASED

IETS

(2020),

https://files.worldwildlife.org/wwfcmsprod/files/Publication/file/7b5iok5vqz_Bend-

ing_the_Curve__The_Restorative_Power_of_Planet_Based_Diets_FULL_REPORT_

FINAL.pdf.pdf;

G. B

ENTON

, C

ARLING

IEG

, H

ELEN

ARWATT

, R

OSHAN

UDASAINI

& L

AURA

ELLESLEY

HATHAM

OUSE

, F

OOD

YSTEM

MPACTS ON

I-

ODIVERSITY

OSS

: T

HREE

EVERS FOR

OOD

YSTEM

RANSFORMATION IN

UPPORT

ATURE

(2021), https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/02/food-system-impacts-bio

diversity-loss;

EHNER

& R

OSENBERG

, supra note 2.

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 4 13-OCT-22 12:26

728 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

of national emissions in 2019 (compared with 29% from transporta-

tion and 25% from electricity).

However, from other perspectives, the

limited attention paid to agriculture and food as part of climate policy

is par for the course. The agricultural industry is famously politically

powerful, and it is exempted from many provisions of federal environ-

mental law or only weakly regulated.

Moreover, the subsets of the

industry that would need to be regulated if government were to ad-

dress GHG emissions on the supply side—meat and dairy producers—

include some of the most powerful components of the industry.

Lastly, regulating GHG emissions by seeking to reduce consumer de-

mand for meat and dairy almost certainly would be politically conten-

tious in many places, especially at the national level. For many people,

food is a matter of personal choice, heavily influenced by family, cul-

ture, and religion, and meat and dairy are popular foods and important

sources of protein and other nutrients.

Perhaps sensing the political

obstacles likely to be encountered in trying to change diets to address

climate change, major U.S. environmental groups have generally not

argued that climate policy should include a focus on food, although

there are some environmental groups that work on food policy.

NVENTORY

, supra note 1. In Table ES-6 in EPA’s 1990–2019 national GHG

inventory, agriculture is the fourth largest source of emissions because this table treats

the residential and commercial building sectors distinctly and does not aggregate them

as does the EPA source cited earlier in this footnote. Id. at ES-26 tbl. ES-6.

7. See, e.g., Margot J. Pollans, Drinking Water Protection and Agriculture Excep-

tionalism, 77

HIO

. L.J.

1195, 1213–14 n.114 (2016) (citing J.B. Ruhl, Farms,

Their Environmental Harms, and Environmental Law, 27

COLOGY

L.Q.

263,

298–304 (2000)). See also

AREN

RADSHAW

, W

ILDLIFE AS

ROPERTY

WNERS

: A

ONCEPTION OF

NIMAL

IGHTS

106 (2020) (attributing the outsourcing to Mex-

ico of efforts to recover thick-billed parrots, an endangered species, partly to the polit-

ical power of cattle grazers in Southern Arizona).

8. Jennifer

Jacquet, The Meat Industry is Doing Exactly What Big Oil Does to

Fight Climate Action,

ASH

. P

OST

(May 14, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.

com/outlook/the-meat-industry-is-doing-exactly-what-big-oil-does-to-fight-climate-

action/2021/05/14/831e14be-b3fe-11eb-ab43-bebddc5a0f65_story.html (comparing

meat and dairy companies to oil and gas companies); Andrew Jacobs, Scientific Panel

on New Dietary Guidelines Draws Criticism from Health Advocates,

N.Y. T

IMES

(June 17, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/health/diet-nutrition-guide-

lines.html (benefits of a plant-based diet for health and sustainability omitted from

2015 national dietary guidelines after “an outcry from the livestock industry”). The

slaughtering and packing of meat are concentrated in four major companies. Peter S.

Goodman, Record Beef Prices, but Ranchers Aren’t Cashing In,

N.Y. T

IMES

(Dec. 29,

2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/beef-prices-cattle-

ranchers.html.

9. See, e.g.,

ARRIET

ULKELEY

, C

ITIES AND

LIMATE

HANGE

67 (2013)

(describing the role of dairy products in the UK).

10.

The Natural Resource Defense Council works on food as part of its New York

Regional, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program. Margaret Brown &

Mark Izeman, New York City Puts Food Front and Center,

NRDC

(Oct. 4, 2019),

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 5 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 729

Notwithstanding the limited attention generally paid to agricul-

ture and food as part of climate policy, there have been some govern-

mental efforts to reduce GHG emissions from this sector. The State of

California has a target to reduce methane emissions from the dairy and

livestock sectors by 40% by 2030 (relative to 2013 emissions).

Most notably for present purposes, some local governments have

taken measures to reduce meat consumption and to increase fruit and

vegetable consumption, some of which have been partly framed as

efforts to reduce GHG emissions as well as improve public health.

A number of local government entities across the U.S. are using their

procurement of food for city operations, schools, hospital, and jails to

reduce the consumption of meat.

Meatless Mondays and Vegan

Fridays in locally administered operations, such as schools, are a tan-

gible example.

At a policy level, in 2021, New York City signed the

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/margaret-brown/new-york-city-puts-food-front-and-

center. Earthjustice has a Sustainable Food and Farming Program. Sustainable Food

& Farming Program: Who We Are,

ARTHJUSTICE

https://earthjustice.org/about/of-

fices/sustainable-food-farming (last visited Feb. 15, 2022) [https://perma.cc/3NLC-

7G63]. For an article identifying the potential benefits of reducing meat consumption

through demand-side measures, see Lingxi Chenyang, Is Meat the New Tobacco?

Regulating Food Demand in the Age of Climate Change, 49

’

L. R

10344,

10349–52 (2019).

11.

To achieve this goal, California has implemented several programs aimed at

reducing agricultural GHG emissions and sequestering carbon, including research and

development on dairy digesters, and programs aimed at manure management, healthy

soils, and water efficiency. For analysis of the progress toward achieving this target,

see generally

. L

EGIS

. A

NALYST

’

FFICE

, A

SSESSING

ALIFORNIA

’

LIMATE

OLICIES

– A

GRICULTURE

(2021),

https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4483;

. B

., A

NALYSIS OF

ROGRESS

OWARD

CHIEVING THE

2030 D

AIRY AND

IVESTOCK

ECTOR

ETHANE

MISSIONS

ARGET

(2021), https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/

sites/default/files/2021-06/draft-2030-dairy-livestock-ch4-analysis.pdf; Liza Gross,

Can California Reduce Dairy Methane Emissions Equitably?,

NSIDE

LIMATE

EWS

. 9, 2021),

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09082021/california-dairy-meth-

ane-emissions/. In contrast, New York State, which, like California, has an aggressive

state legislative mandate to decarbonize its economy, has expressly exempted live-

stock emissions from binding GHG emission control requirements.

N.Y. E

’

ON-

SERV

. L

§ 75-0109(2)(b).

12. See generally

DALENE

INELLI

, J

EFF

EBO

, D

ANIELLE

PIEGEL

-F

ELD

& K

A-

TRINA

YMAN

, T

OWARDS

LANT

-F

ORWARD

IETS

: A T

OOLKIT FOR

OCAL

OLICY-

MAKERS

(2021), available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kFZX4AS4_2XEUb

2XZarihmCJDYRnDG73/view.

13.

INELLI ET AL

., supra note 12, at 6-8; Lisa Held, NYC is on the Cusp of Making

its Food Purchasing Sustainable. It Won’t be Easy,

IVIL

ATS

(Dec. 21, 2021),

https://civileats.com/2021/12/21/nyc-is-on-the-cusp-of-making-its-food-purchasing-

sustainable-it-wont-be-easy/.

14.

INELLI ET AL

., supra note 12, at 6 (referring to examples of Meatless Mondays

in school systems in the U.S.); Priya Krishna, New York’s Mayor is Building An

Agenda Around Food. Will It Satisfy?,

N.Y. T

IMES

(March 14, 2014), https://

www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/dining/eric-adams-vegan-nyc.html (referring to the

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 6 13-OCT-22 12:26

730 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

Cool Fool pledge, committing itself to reducing the GHG emissions

from the food that the city procures by 25% by 2030.

That same

year, Washington, D.C. passed legislation requiring that the city re-

duce the GHG emissions from the food that it purchases by 25% by

2030 (a target consistent with the Cool Food pledge), and develop a

mechanism to track the emissions from the food that the city govern-

ment purchases.

Echoing the local use of governmental food pro-

curement to reduce GHG emissions, the Biden Administration is

apparently considering developing policies to reduce these emissions

from federal food procurement.

This Article argues that local governments are well-positioned to

add food policy more squarely to their climate policy toolkit and, per-

haps in so doing, to broaden the agenda of climate policy to incorpo-

rate more food policy measures. In addition, we endorse a modest, but

potentially important, step which cities could take to help make the

case for integrating food policy into climate policy and tracking their

progress in reducing GHG emissions from food: estimating, on a regu-

lar basis, the GHG emissions from food procured by city governments

for city-funded facilities such as schools, hospitals, homeless shelters,

and jails. Better data on the contributions of city government-funded

consumption of food to GHG emissions might help more people un-

launch of Vegan Fridays in New York City schools); Jessica Fu, New York City’s

Vegan-Fridays School-Food Program Is As Vegan As Its Mayor – That is, Not En-

tirely,

OUNTER

(Feb. 9, 2022), https://thecounter.org/new-york-city-vegan-

fridays-school-lunch-food-program-eric-adams/ (school lunch offerings on Vegan

Fridays are not entirely vegan and Vegan Fridays are not entirely novel).

15. Sustainable Food,

NYC O

LIMATE

& S

USTAINABILITY

, https://

www1.nyc.gov/site/sustainability/achievements/sustainable-food.page (last visited

Feb. 27, 2022)) (“In 2021, New York City became the first city in the nation to join

the Cool Food Pledge. Through the pledge, the City committed to reduce the green-

house gases associated with the food it serves by 25 percent by 2030—a level of

ambition in line with achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.”). In Febru-

ary 2021, New York City also released a 10-year food policy plan, “Food Forward

NYC,” which includes sustainability goals for the city’s food system such as pursuing

“legislative changes to allow the City to directly address a broader range of [environ-

mental] challenges through its food procurement.”

AYOR

’

OOD

’

OOD

ORWARD

NYC: A 10 Y

EAR

OOD

OLICY

LAN

70-71 (2021) (Goal 4(A)).

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/foodpolicy/downloads/pdf/Food-Forward-NYC.pdf.

16. Green Food Purchasing Amendment Act of 2021, D.C. Code § 8-151.09b (d).

17.

In a December 2021 Executive Order, President Biden directed that “[t]he Chair

of CEQ [Council on Environmental Quality] shall consider establishing Federal food

procurement policies to reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions and drive sus-

tainability in the Federal food supply chain.” Press Release, The White House, Execu-

tive Order on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal

Sustainability (Dec. 8, 2021), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presiden-

tial-actions/2021/12/08/executive-order-on-catalyzing-clean-energy-industries-and-

jobs-through-federal-sustainability/. [https://perma.cc/9VQH-9XPJ].

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 7 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 731

derstand the climate costs of food choices and set the stage for more

governmental efforts to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture and

food as part of climate mitigation. More immediately, better data

would provide a basis for cities to commit to reducing GHG emissions

from their food purchases, and tracking whether they are meeting

these GHG reduction commitments.

ONNECTION

ETWEEN

GRICULTURE

, F

OOD AND

LIMATE

HANGE

While many people recognize that burning fossil fuels such as

coal, oil, and natural gas contributes to climate change, fewer people

are likely aware that agriculture also contributes to climate change.

This part sets out the key ways in which agriculture contributes to

climate change and discusses several of the leading sources arguing

that changes in human food choices can help reduce agricultural emis-

sions globally and in the United States.

A. Sources of Agricultural Emissions

Agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions in several

ways

which span the supply chain.

First, land use changes are a

primary contributor.

Clearing land for growing crops to feed animals

and humans,

as well as deforestation for cattle grazing in areas such

as the Brazilian Amazon, leads to the release of GHG emissions.

18. GLEAM 2.0 – Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Poten-

tial,

OOD

& A

. O

OF THE

U.N.,

https://www.fao.org/gleam/results/en/ (last vis-

ited Feb. 15, 2022) [https://perma.cc/GN3S-S7DN].

19. Hannah

Ritchie, You Want to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Your Food? Fo-

cus on What You Eat, Not Whether Your Food is Local,

ORLD IN

ATA

(Jan.

24, 2020), https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local.

20. Id.

21.

John Lynch, Michelle Cain, David Frame & Raymond Pierrehumbert, Agricul-

ture’s Contribution to Climate Change and Role in Mitigation is Distinct from

Predominantly Fossil CO

-Emitting Sectors,

RONTIERS IN

USTAINABLE

OOD

(

2021), https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.518039/full.

22.

Lazarus et al., supra note 3, at 16 (“The majority of Cargill’s and Tyson’s

emissions are the result of land-use changes for feed production in places like the

Brazilian Amazon.”); Matthew N. Hayek, Helen Harwatt, William Ripple & Nathan-

iel Mueller, The Carbon Opportunity Cost of Animal-Sourced Food Production on

Land,

. S

USTAINABILITY

4 (2021),

https://scientists.forestry.oregonstate.edu/

sites/sw/files/Hayek2020.pdf. Deforestation contributes to climate change in a number

of ways. Trees and forests store carbon dioxide, and, when they are destroyed through

processes such as slash-and-burn deforestation, the carbon they stored is released back

into the atmosphere. Additionally, trees are a natural carbon sink, meaning they ab-

sorb carbon dioxide to grow; deforestation eliminates this carbon sink. Tropical defor-

estation and global warming,

NION OF

ONCERNED

CIENTISTS

(2021), https://

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732 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

the United States, agricultural soil management practices—such as the

production and usage of fertilizers—also lead to significant GHG

emissions in the form of nitrous oxide.

The need to grow crops to

feed animals raised for human consumption leads some people to call

animals “inefficient food converters” because humans could instead

eat the crops directly.

Beyond land management, livestock them-

selves produce emissions.

Cattle release methane when they belch

due to their digestive process of enteric fermentation;

manure also

emits methane and nitrous oxide.

In fact, in the United States, “56

percent of total [CO

e] emissions from the agricultural sector” come

from livestock.

Meat and dairy are the greatest culprits.

Encapsu-

lating the contributions of cows to climate change, Jeremy Coller,

www.ucsusa.org/resources/tropical-deforestation-and-global-warming (last updated

Nov. 10, 2021) [https://perma.cc/94CJ-3HRS].

23.

NVENTORY

, supra note 1, at 2-21 & 2-22.

24. Feed-to-Meat – Conversion Inefficiency Ratios,

A W

ELL

-F

ORLD

https://

awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/ (last visited Feb. 15, 2022) [https://perma.cc/RVJ7-

NY65]. See also Jillian P Fry, Nicholas Mailloux, David Love, Michael Milli & Ling

Cao, Feed Conversion Efficiency in Aquaculture: Do We Measure It Correctly?, 13

’

SCH

. L

ETTER

024017 (2018), https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-

9326/aaa273/meta (stating that Feed Conversion Ratios (FCRs) “are typically

6.0–10.0 for beef” compared to “1.7–2.0 for chicken”); Id. (using the common mea-

surement of Feed Conversion Ratios, “fed aquaculture and chickens are similarly effi-

cient at converting feed into animal biomass, and both are more efficient compared to

pigs and cattle”). According to the World Resources Institute, “[p]roducing beef, for

example, uses 20 times the land and emits 20 times the emissions as producing beans,

per gram of protein” Richard Waite & Daniel Vennard, Without Changing Diets, Ag-

riculture Alone Could Produce Enough Emissions to Surpass 1.5

C of Global Warm-

ing,

ORLD

. I

NST

(Oct. 17, 2018), https://www.wri.org/insights/without-

changing-diets-agriculture-alone-could-produce-enough-emissions-surpass-15degc.

See also Gidon Eshel, Alon Shepon, Tamar Makov & Ron Milo, Land, Irrigation

Water, Greenhouse Gas, and Reactive Nitrogen Burdens of Meat, Eggs, and Dairy

Production in The United States, 111

ROC

. N

’

CAD

. S

11996, 11998 (2014),

https://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996 (“beef is consistently the least resource-

efficient of the five animal categories [which are beef, dairy, poultry, pork, and eggs]

in all four considered metrics [which are land, water, GHGs, reactive nitrogen]”).

25. Feed-to-Meat

– Conversion Inefficiency Ratios, supra

note 24.

26.

Livestock, and especially ruminant livestock such as cows, produce methane

during digestion, which results in “over a quarter of the emissions from the agricul-

tural economic sector.” Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions,

’

ROT

. A

GENCY

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions (last visited

Feb. 15, 2022) [https://perma.cc/CL69-798T].

27.

According to the EPA, “[m]anure management accounts for about 12 percent of

the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture economic sector in the United

States.” Id. When methane emissions from enteric fermentation and manure manage-

ment are aggregated, agriculture is the largest source of methane emissions in the

U.S., surpassing natural gas and oil production. Id.

28.

Livestock includes beef cattle, dairy cattle, swine, horses, mules, goats, sheep,

bison, and poultry. The majority of emissions are from beef cattle, followed by dairy

cattle and then swine.

U.S. D

’

TOF

GRIC

., U.S. A

GRICULTURE AND

ORESTRY

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 9 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 733

chair of the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR) net-

work, recently proclaimed “cows are the new coal.”

Other sources of emissions on the farm include the energy costs

of farm machinery.

And, while most agricultural GHG emissions are

generated in the production phase,

beyond the farm, converting raw

animal products to food items,

transporting food from where it is

grown to where it is consumed,

retail, and packaging all contribute

to GHG emissions stemming from agriculture as well. Food waste is

also a significant contributor to total food-related emissions.

World-

REENHOUSE

NVENTORY

: 1990–2018

at 12–13 (2022), https://www.usda.gov/

sites/default/files/documents/USDA-GHG-Inventory-1990-2018.pdf.

29.

Data from the USDA shows that “beef cattle contributed the largest fraction (55

percent) of GHG emissions from livestock in 2018, with the majority of emissions in

the form of CH4 from enteric fermentation and N2O from grazed land soils,” and that

“dairy cattle were the second-largest livestock source of GHG emissions (31 per-

cent).” Id.

30. Aryn

Baker, “Cows Are the New Coal.” How the Cattle Industry Is Ignoring

the Bottom Line When It Comes to Methane Emissions,

IME

. 2, 2021),

https://

time.com/6125014/cows-agricultural-emissions/; Press Release, FAIRR, $5 Trillion

Investor Group and Former UN Secretary-General Urge G20 Leaders to Set Clear

Emissions Targets for Agriculture (June 30, 2021), https://www.fairr.org/article/5-tril-

lion-investor-group-and-former-un-secretary-general-urge-g20-leaders-to-set-clear-

emission-targets-for-agriculture/; see also Treating Beef Like Coal Would Make a Big

Dent in Greenhouse-Gas Emissions,

CONOMIST

(Oct. 2, 2021), https://

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/10/02/treating-beef-like-coal-would-make-

a-big-dent-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions.

Grass-fed beef might be thought to be more environmentally friendly than fac-

tory-farmed beef. However, grass-fed cattle produce more methane emissions than

factory-farmed beef. See, e.g., Matthew N. Hayek & Rachael D. Garrett, Nationwide

Shift to Grass-fed Beef Requires Larger Cattle Population, 13

’

SCH

. L

ETTERS

1, 4 (2018) (“Taken together, an exclusively grass-fed beef cattle herd would raise the

United States’ total methane emissions by approximately 8%.”).

31.

Ray Massey & Drew Kientzy

Agriculture and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,

X-

TENSION

NIV

2 (2021), https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g310

(“When electric-related emissions are distributed to the economic sectors, agriculture

released an additional 35 MMT Carbon Dioxide Equivalent.”).

32. Ritchie, supra note 19.

33. Id.

34.

Christopher L. Weber & H. Scott Matthews, Food-Miles and the Relative Cli-

mate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States, 42

’

. & T

ECH

3508

(2008), https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es702969f. This article finds that while food

may be transported long distances, “GHG emissions associated with food are domi-

nated by the production phase,” and that when it comes to food transport, “transporta-

tion as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions.” Id. at 3508.

Notably, the percentage of total emissions that transport represents is higher for non-

meat products.

35.

A 2018 study examining global emissions from food “found that almost one-

quarter—24%—of food’s emissions come from food that is lost in supply chains or

wasted by consumers. Almost two-thirds of this (15% of food emissions) comes from

losses in the supply chain which result from poor storage and handling techniques;

lack of refrigeration; and spoilage in transport and processing. The other 9% comes

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734 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

wide, across the supply chain, ruminant meat (such as beef and lamb)

and dairy have the greatest GHG emissions per kilogram of food

product.

B. Calls For Shifting to Earth-Friendly Diets to Reduce GHG

Emissions

One way in which agricultural emissions can be mitigated is by

changing the food that people eat. Recognizing the contributions of

agriculture and food to climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change (IPCC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have

recently issued reports highlighting the potential to mitigate global

GHG emissions by reducing consumption of meat and dairy prod-

ucts.

The IPCC report found that a diet high in coarse grains, fruit,

and vegetables and low in animal-sourced foods presents “major op-

portunities for reducing GHG emissions from food systems.”

A diet

such as this, which is “plant-based, but allow[s] for moderate animal-

source food consumption, including meat” is known as a “flexitarian”

diet.

The WWF report found that “[f]ollowing a flexitarian diet

would reduce total global food-related GHG emissions [from 14Gt]

down to 9.9Gt.”

The WWF report also highlights the potential to

reduce emissions by cutting back on meat and dairy consumption.

As it stands, “[r]ed meat and dairy currently account for just over half

of total global food-related GHG emissions (7.4Gt of 14.3Gt)”—but

shifting to a flexitarian diet reduces that number to only 2.9Gt.

Go-

ing a step further and shifting to an entirely vegan diet (where no

animal products are consumed) would allow GHG emissions to be

“reduced to near the climate planetary boundary for food solely

through a dietary shift.”

The WWF report lays out the need to “re-

from food thrown away by retailers and consumers.” Hannah Ritchie, Food Waste is

Responsible for 6% of Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions,

ORLD IN

ATA

(March 18, 2020), https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions (drawing on Jo-

seph Poore & Thomas Nemecek, Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts Through

Producers and Consumers, 360

987 (2018), https://www.science.org/doi/

10.1126/science.aaq0216). This means that “food wastage is responsible for around

6% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.” Id.

36. Ritchie, supra note 19.

37.

IPCC F

OOD

ECURITY

supra note 5;

OKEN ET AL

supra note 5, at 27.

38.

IPCC F

OOD

ECURITY

supra note 5, at 440.

39.

OKEN ET AL

supra note 5, at 9. (“Dietary Patterns Assessed”).

40.

OKEN ET AL

supra note 5, at 27.

41. Id. at 28.

42. Id.

43. Id. at 27; Bruce M. Campbell, Douglas J. Beare, Elena M. Bennett, Jason M.

Hall-Spencer, John S. I. Ingram, Fernando Jaramillo, Rodomiro Ortiz, Navin

Ramankutty, Jeffrey A. Sayer & Drew Shindell, Agriculture Production as a Major

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 11 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 735

duce total greenhouse gas emissions from food production to at most 5

Gt CO

-eq” and urges that shifting diets away from meat and dairy can

help us get there.

Such calls have also been made on a national scale. The World

Resources Institute (WRI) and Chatham House have both issued re-

ports recently, urging increased consumption of plants and reduction

in meat consumption in the United States.

The WRI found that agri-

cultural land use has a massive impact on carbon emissions and that

beef accounts for roughly half of that land use.

In fact, by amortizing

the carbon emissions associated with agricultural land use changes

over a 20 year period, they determined that the average U.S. diet

causes emissions of nearly 17 tons of CO

e per person per year—an

amount on par with per capita emissions from energy use in the

United States.

The WRI also identified “reductions in consumption

of ruminant meat (beef, sheep, and goat) as the most promising strat-

egy for reducing land requirements and GHG emissions.”

Support-

ing this point, a 2020 study found that if U.S. consumers cut their

consumption of animal-based food in half, it would lead to a 35% drop

in per capita GHG emissions “associated with agricultural production

of the average diet” from baseline levels.

Cutting consumption even

further—down to 10% of the current level—would reduce emissions

associated with animal-based food products by 51%.

This study em-

phasizes the key role diet can play in mitigating emissions.

The Chatham House report echoes these calls for dietary shifts,

proclaiming that “global dietary patterns need to converge around di-

ets based more on plants.”

The report states that if everyone in the

United States made the switch from beef to beans, it would contribute

substantially to achieving climate goals (in this example, “meeting be-

tween 42 and 74 per cent of the U.S. GHG reduction goal for

Driver of the Earth System Exceeding Planetary Boundaries, 22

COLOGY

& S

’

(2017). The WWF report cites Campbell et al. in their discussion of climate planetary

boundaries (CPBs). CPBs are “the boundary of a safe operating space for humanity.”

Id. at 8.

44.

OKEN ET AL

supra note 5, at 25, 28.

45.

EARCHINGER ET AL

., supra note 5;

ENTON ET AL

supra note 5.

46.

EARCHINGER ET AL

., supra note 5, at 15.

47. Id. at n.115

48. Id. at 66.

49.

ARTIN

ELLER

, G

REGORY

EOLEIAN

& D

IEGO

OSE

, C

FOR

USTAINABLE

., R

EPORT

. CSS20-01, I

MPLICATIONS OF

UTURE

US D

IET

CENARIOS ON

REENHOUSE

MISSIONS

3 (2020), https://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publi-

cation/CSS20-01.pdf.

50. Id.

51.

ENTON ET AL

., supra note 5, at 2.

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736 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

2020”).

The public good from shifting diets away from meat and

dairy does not stop at climate impacts; such shifts could also lead to

improved dietary quality, reduced incidence of diet-related disease

(especially that associated with the consumption of red meat), and re-

duced pandemic risk.

Air quality also might improve, with a recent

study finding that in the United States, “80% of the 15,900 annual

deaths that result from food-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5)

pollution are attributable to animal-based foods.”

While there are powerful arguments for reducing meat and dairy

consumption to reduce GHG emissions, some argue that such reduc-

tions in consumption are unnecessary to address climate change. For

example, researchers are uncovering ways of reducing the methane

emissions from cow belches by changing the foods that cows are fed.

Introducing foods, such as seaweed, into the diets of cows might re-

duce their methane emissions from belching, at least within industrial

agricultural settings.

However, even if methane emissions from ru-

52. Id. at 23–24.

53. Id. at 24.

54.

Nina Domingo, Srinidhi Balasubramanian, Sumil K. Thakrar, Michael A. Clark,

Peter J. Adams, Julian D. Marshall, Nicholas Z. Muller, Spyros N. Pandis, Stephen

Polasky, Allen L. Robinson, Christopher W. Tessum, David Tilman, Peter Tschofen

& Jason D. Hill, Air quality–related health damages of food,

ROC

. N

’

CAD

. S

(May 18, 2021), https://www.pnas.org/content/118/20/e2013637118.

55. Maddie

Duley, UC Davis Research Shows Seaweed Reduces Cow Methane

Emissions by as Much as 82%,

. A

GGIE

(Apr. 13, 2021), https://theaggie.org/

2021/04/13/uc-davis-research-shows-seaweed-reduces-cow-methane-emissions-by-as-

much-as-82/; Oliver Morrison, JBS Inks Feed Additive Deal to Cut Cow Methane

Emissions Globally,

OOD

AVIGATOR

(Nov. 8, 2021), https://www.foodnavigator.

com/Article/2021/11/08/JBS-inks-feed-additive-deal-to-cut-cow-methane-emissions-

globally; Bovaer: Farm-wise Climate-Friendly,

DSM

, https://www.dsm.com/corpo-

rate/markets/animal-feed/minimizing-methane-from-cattle.html (last visited Feb. 15,

2022). For a defense of animal agriculture that critiques what it calls the “narrative”

that cows are the new coal, see Joseph W. McFadden, Cows are Not the New Coal –

Here’s Why,

ILL

(Dec. 16, 2021), https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environ-

ment/586052-cows-are-not-the-new-coal-heres-why. For an overview of the results of

research on the effects of food additives on methane emissions from enteric fermenta-

tion, see

OGER

S. H

EGARTY

, R

ODRIGO

ASSETTI

, K

YLE

ITTMER

, Y

UXI

ANG

, S

ADIE

HELTON

, J

EREMY

MMET

-B

OOTH

, E

OLLENBERG

, T

LLISTER

, S

INEAD

EAHY

, K

AREN

EAUCHEMIN

& N

OEL

URWICK

, G

LOBAL

SCH

. A

GRIC

REENHOUSE

ASES

, A

VALUATION OF

VIDENCE FOR

FFICACY AND

PPLICABIL-

ITY OF

ETHANE

NHIBITING

EED

DDITIVES FOR

IVESTOCK

(2021), https://

hdl.handle.net/10568/116489. See also M. Honan, X. Feng, J.M. Tricarico & E.

Kebreab, Feed Additives as a Strategic Approach to Reduce Enteric Methane Produc-

tion in Cattle: Modes of Action, Effectiveness and Safety,

NIMAL

ROD

. S

. (2020),

https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/an20295. According to a 2021 draft report from the

California Air Resources Board, “no feed additives with demonstrated long-term

methane mitigation potential have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Admin-

istration and are commercially available.”

. A

. B

., A

NALYSIS OF

ROGRESS

TOWARD

CHIEVING THE

2030 D

AIRY AND

IVESTOCK

ECTOR

ETHANE

MISSIONS

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 13 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 737

minants could be reduced by altering their food, animal agriculture for

human consumption would still be releasing GHGs from deforestation

and land use changes, fertilizers, and manure, at least under existing

technology, suggesting that there are still reasons from a climate per-

spective for reducing human consumption of meat and dairy. Moreo-

ver, there are arguments that reducing meat consumption also might

help humans adapt to climate change by freeing up water and energy

for purposes other than raising meat for human consumption.

II.

ITIES

ELL

-P

OSITIONED TO

NTEGRATE

OOD

NTO

LIMATE

ITIGATION

OLICY

There are four reasons for thinking that local governments may

be well-placed to seek to reduce meat and dairy consumption as part

of their climate policy, notwithstanding the political forces likely to

resist such efforts to lower consumption.

First, many cities are politically progressive places where Demo-

crats predominate, with few climate change deniers among the voting

public.

This means that city residents are more likely to support cli-

mate action in the first place than people living in rural areas.

None-

theless, it is important not to overstate the extent to which city

governments are currently reducing GHG emissions. Some data sug-

gests that city governments may be better at rhetorically embracing

action to reduce GHG emissions than actually reducing these

emissions.

ARGET

ES-4 (June 2021), https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/draft-

2030-dairy-livestock-ch4-analysis.pdf.

56. Chenyang, supra note 10, at 10347.

57. Derek Thompson, How Democrats Conquered the City,

TLANTIC

(Sep-

tember 13, 2019), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/brief-history-

how-democrats-conquered-city/597955/.

58.

Emily Pechar Diamond, Robert Bonnie & Elizabeth Rowe, Rural Attitudes on

Climate Change,

UKE

ICHOLAS

NST

FOR

’

OLUTIONS

(2020),

https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/rural-attitudes-climate-change-lessons-

national-and-midwest-polling-and-focus-groups (“In general, rural voters were more

divided about the importance of climate change action than their urban and suburban

counterparts. . .. In both the rural and urban/suburban samples, however, climate

change attitudes were highly polarized along party lines.”).

59.

According to a 2020 study for the Brookings Institution, “[o]f the 100 most

populated cities in the United States, only 45 have established greenhouse gas reduc-

tion targets and corresponding baseline GHG inventories.”

ARKOLF

, I

M. L.

ZEVEDO

, M

ARK

URO

AND

AVID

G. V

ICTOR

, B

ROOKINGS

, P

LEDGES AND

RO-

GRESS

: S

TEPS

OWARD

REENHOUSE

MISSIONS

EDUCTIONS IN THE

100 L

ARG-

EST

ITIES

CROSS THE

NITED

TATES

(2020), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-

content/uploads/2020/10/FP_20201022_ghg_pledges_v4.pdf. Furthermore, the study

found that of the 45, only 32 have conducted follow-up GHG inventories to their

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738 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

Second, reducing meat and dairy consumption could benefit city

residents, and potentially city governments, in ways other than reduc-

ing GHG emissions. Such dietary changes might improve individual

health, and these health benefits could be an important motivation for

individuals to change the foods that they eat in ways that would also

benefit the climate. Processed meat (such as hot dogs and deli meats)

is recognized by the World Health Organization as a carcinogen; the

WHO also considers red meat a probable carcinogen.

While we hesi-

tate to wade into the contentious field of nutrition science,

consum-

ing meat and dairy has been linked to diabetes,

high cholesterol,

heart disease,

and obesity.

Moreover, human consumption of ani-

mals also contributes to greater interaction between humans and ani-

mals, which creates more pathways for pathogens to jump from

animals to humans, leading to more epidemics and pandemics, many

baseline inventory and “about two-thirds of [these] cities are currently lagging their

targeted emission levels.” Id. at 18; see also id. at 16.

60. The WHO considers processed meat to be a “Group 1” carcinogen, meaning

that there is “convincing evidence that the agent causes cancer.” The WHO considers

red meat to be a “Group 2A” probable carcinogen, meaning that “a positive associa-

tion has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer” but that they have

not entirely ruled out other causes. Cancer: Carcinogenicity of the Consumption of

Red Meat and Processed Meat,

ORLD

EALTH

(Oct. 26, 2015), https://

www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-

consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed.

61. See generally Jane E. Brody, Confused by Nutrition Research? Sloppy Science

May Be to Blame,

N.Y. T

IMES

(Oct. 29, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/

well/live/confused-by-nutrition-research-sloppy-science-may-be-to-blame.html; Jo-

seph S. Alpert, The Great Meat Debate, 133

. J.

. 769

(2020), https://

www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30138-8/fulltext.

62. Neal Barnard, Susan Levin & Caroline Trapp, Meat Consumption as a Risk

Factor for Type 2 Diabetes, 6

UTRIENTS

897, 906 (2013), https://doi.org/10.3390/

nu6020897 (“Meat consumption is consistently associated with diabetes risk.”).

63. Nathalie Bergeron, Sally Chiu, Paul T. Williams, Sarah M. King & Ronald M.

Krauss, Effects of Red Meat, White Meat, and Nonmeat Protein Sources on Ather-

ogenic Lipoprotein Measures in the Context of Low Compared with High Saturated

Fat Intake: A Randomized Controlled Trial, 110

. J.

LINICAL

UTRITION

24,

29 (2019), https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/110/1/24/5494812. (“[C]ompared

with nonmeat as the major protein source, diets containing high amounts of either red

or white meat, and without differences in other macronutrients, result in higher con-

centrations of LDL cholesterol.”).

64. Jennifer

Abbasi, TMAO and Heart Disease: The New Red Meat Risk?, 321

JAMA 2149, 2149-50 (2019), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31116376/ (discussing

evidence that suggests that consumption of red meat increases levels of TMAO, which

increases the risk of heart disease and is a “triple threat” to the cardiovascular

system.).

65.

Y. Wang & M. A. Beydoun, Meat Consumption is Associated with Obesity and

Central Obesity Among US Adults, 33

’

BESITY

621, 621 (2009), https://

doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2009.45. This “US national cross-sectional data show[s] positive

associations between MC and risk for obesity and central obesity.” Id.

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 15 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 739

of which are zoonotic in origin.

Human consumption of industrially

raised cattle, which is often fed antibiotics, also contributes to antibi-

otic resistance in humans.

Local governments might be interested in developing food poli-

cies that encourage people to improve their health. In the recent past,

local governments have implemented food policies to improve public

health, for example, to reduce obesity, and some of these innovative

local policies, such as banning trans fats, have subsequently been

adopted nationally.

A 2021 Washington, D.C. city council commit-

tee report argues that shifting away from “GHG-intensive foods”

could promote “racial equity,”

which might help to spur local gov-

ernments in progressive cities to pursue policies promoting changes in

people’s food choices. Also, the public health benefits of reducing

66. Romain Espinosa, Damian Tago & Nicolas Treich, Infectious Diseases and

Meat Production, 76

’

. E

CON

1019, 1020 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1007/

s10640-020-00484-3. (finding that “75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoo-

notic” and that “intensive animal farming creates conditions for the emergence and

amplification of epidemics because of the physical and genetic proximity of the bil-

lions of animals” raised each year).

67. See Christian Lindmeier, Stop Using Antibiotics in Healthy Animals to Prevent

the Spread of Antibiotic Resistance,

ORLD

EALTH

(Nov. 7, 2017), https://

www.who.int/news/item/07-11-2017-stop-using-antibiotics-in-healthy-animals-to-pre

vent-the-spread-of-antibiotic-resistance.

68. See generally Maeve E. Gearing & Theresa Anderson, Innovations in NYC

Health & Human Services Policy: Food Policy,

RBAN

NST

. (2014),

https://

www.urban.org/research/publication/innovations-nyc-health-and-human-services-pol-

icy-food-policy (describing food policies in New York City under Mayor Michael

Bloomberg); Eric Crosbie, Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Kathrine E. Wright, Samantha

Hoeper & Laura Schmidt, State Preemption: An Emerging Threat to Local Sugar-

Sweetened Beverage Taxation, 111

. J.

. H

EALTH

677, 677 (2021), https://

ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306062. (discussing the imple-

mentation of soda taxes by Navajo Nation and seven U.S. cities between 2014 and

2017); Krishna, supra note 14 (discussing New York City’s ban on trans fats that was

federalized under the Obama Administration); Katrina M. Wyman & Jeff Sebo, Food

Law Policy:

Eric Adams Can Innovate in NYC,

TATE

& L

. G

’

L. B

LOG

(Oct.

24, 2021), https://www.sloglaw.org/post/food-law-policy-eric-adams-can-innovate-in-

nyc (describing New York City’s ban on trans fats and mandatory calorie counts,

which were adopted at the federal level).

69.

OMM

ON THE

RANSP

AND THE

’

, C

OUNCIL OF THE

IST

OLUMBIA

OMMITTEE

EPORT

: B24-18,

THE

“G

REEN

OOD

URCHASING

MENDMENT

CT OF

2021”

4 (2021), https://lims.dccouncil.us/downloads/LIMS/46320/Committee_Report/

B24-0018-Committee_Report1.pdf. Id. at 4 (“[T]he environmental and public health

harms associated with carbon intensive foods are disproportionately borne by Black,

Latinx, and Indigenous communities, who are more likely to be exposed to agricul-

ture-related climate and pollution impacts, as well as to the food insecurity and inequi-

table food access caused by GHG-intensive food production practices.”). See also

OMM

ON THE

RANSP

AND THE

’

, C

OUNCIL OF THE

IST OF

OLUMBIA

, C

OM-

MITTEE

EPORT

: B24-18,

THE

“G

REEN

OOD

URCHASING

MENDMENT

CT OF

2021”

attach. C (2021), https://lims.dccouncil.us/downloads/LIMS/46320/Commit-

tee_Report/B24-0018-Committee_Report1.pdf.

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740 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

meat and dairy consumption might translate into potentially quantifi-

able cost savings for local governments, for example if they operate

health services such as hospitals.

One report found that, on a na-

tional level, current consumption trends could cost the United States

“between $197 billion and $289 billion annually by 2050 in health-

and climate-related costs.”

Local governments might be motivated to adopt changes to local

food procurement policies not only by the potential health benefits of

adopting GHG friendly food choices but also by a sense of ethical

obligation. City governments purchase a considerable amount of

food,

and they might be regarded as having an ethical obligation to

provide the vulnerable people whom they feed healthy plant-based

food options.

By serving only unhealthy food to people who turn to

them for food, governments might be contributing to disease.

On the

other hand, limiting vulnerable people to only healthy food choices

might be regarded as depriving them of the right to choose the food

they consume that is enjoyed by people with more resources.

Re-

70. Additional cost savings may come from the reduced cost of plant-based foods;

for example, the Oakland Unified School District “reduc[ed] its purchases of animal

products by 30 percent and replac[ed] them with plant-based proteins and more fruits

and vegetables,” ultimately saving the school district $42,000 annually.

ARI

AMERSCHLAG

, A

LICIA

ULVER

, C

HLO

ATERMAN

& B

ECCA

ARTHOLOMEW

RIENDS OF THE

ARTH

, M

EAT OF THE

ATTER

: A M

UNICIPAL

UIDE TO

LIMATE

RIENDLY

OOD

URCHASING

10 (2017), https://1bps6437gg8c169i0y1drtgz-

wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MunicipalRe-

port_ko_120117_v2-1.pdf#page=10&zoom=100,0,0.

71.

INELLI ET AL

, supra note 12, at 8 (citing Lauren Cassani Davis, The Eco-

nomic Case for Worldwide Vegetarianism,

TLANTIC

(Mar. 28, 2016), citing

ARCO

PRINGMAN ET AL

., A

NALYSIS AND

ALUATION OF THE

EALTH AND

LIMATE

HANGE

OBENEFITS OF

IETARY

HANGE

(2016)).

72. See infra note 103 and accompanying text (referring to New York City and its

agencies spending $500 million a year on food).

73. WHO Urges Governments to Promote Healthy Food in Public Facilities,

ORLD

EALTH

(Jan. 12, 2021), https://www.who.int/news/item/12-01-2021-

who-urges-governments-to-promote-healthy-food-in-public-facilities. (“Public places

that serve the entire community, including our most vulnerable populations, must be

places where healthy diets are promoted not discouraged. . . no public funds should be

spent on food contributing to unhealthy diets”).

74. Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Eric Adams,

N.Y. T

IMES

(Oct. 1, 2021),

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-eric-

adams.html (“If a person is homeless, if a person is on some form of food pantry

allotment, they go to the government because they don’t have any other choices. So

it’s almost a betrayal when you know someone has no other choice but to eat what

you give them, and you’re giving them food that feeds their chronic diseases.”). See

Chenyang, supra note 10, at 10360 (“[T]he government influences private food

choice . . . by shaping food environments for captive customers.”).

75. See, e.g., Kimberley Leonard, The Great Government Takeover,

U.S. N

EWS

ORLD

(June 5, 2015) (quoting people who criticize governmental efforts to

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 17 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 741

gardless, vulnerable people who rely on governments for food should

at least have similar opportunities to eat healthier food as people who

do not depend on public assistance for food.

Third, cities are generally not major producers of food, and so

meat and dairy producers are not likely to be politically powerful in-

terest groups in city politics. As Professor Jonathan Rosenbloom em-

phasizes in an important article on how local governments calculate

city GHG emissions, most American cities import most of their food

and are not major sites of food production.

Generally located outside

of cities, large producers of meat and dairy products are unlikely to

wield significant political power in city politics, leaving city politi-

cians more leeway to adopt policies that reduce demand for meat and

dairy products than politicians representing jurisdictions with signifi-

cant food production industries.

However, a few important caveats

are in order. There may be distributors, retailers, and artisanal produc-

ers of meat and dairy foods within cities who might oppose local ef-

forts to reduce meat and dairy consumption, especially if these firms

cannot easily transition to selling more plant-based foods. These con-

stituencies might amplify the voices of consumers concerned about

local governments seeking to influence people’s food choices. Fur-

thermore, rural meat and dairy producers—alone, or with assistance

from urban interest groups—might have the leverage to have states

preempt local efforts to reduce meat and dairy consumption.

State

preemption might be an especially potent threat to Democrat-con-

trolled cities in states where Republicans predominate at the state level

because of the Republican leanings of many rural state voters.

Fourth, city leaders might think of increasing consumption of

plant-based foods—a likely corollary to reducing meat and dairy con-

sumption—as a local economic development strategy. Local govern-

ments and others have become increasingly interested in promoting

urban agriculture.

Such agriculture encompasses a wide range of ac-

influence food choices of people generally, not specifically the people to which gov-

ernments are supplying food).

76. Jonathan

Rosenbloom, Outsourced Emissions: Why Local Governments Should

Track and Measure Consumption-Based Greenhouse Gases, 92

NIV

OLO

. L.

451, 486 (2021).

77. Id.

78.

On state preemption of local food policies, see, e.g., Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Les-

lie Zellers, Michael Bare, and Mark Pertschuk, State Preemption of Food and Nutri-

tion Policies and Litigation: Undermining Government’s Role in Public Health, 56

. J. O

REVENTIVE

47 (2019), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30467091/.

79. Mindy

Bridges, Growing Interest in Urban Agriculture,

’

ONF

TATE

EGIS

(Sept. 2018), https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources

/growing-interest-in-urban-agriculture.aspx (“States, along with federal and local gov-

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 18 13-OCT-22 12:26

742 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

tivities—from community gardens to for-profit outfits growing lettuce

in greenhouses—which generally have in common growing plants, not

raising cattle for human consumption as meat and dairy.

Reductions

in consumption of meat and dairy products might create more demand

for the products of for-profit urban agriculture firms growing plant-

based food or new city-based food technology companies. We empha-

size, though, that it is unlikely that cities would ever feed themselves

entirely from produce grown within their borders.

In combination, the four arguments discussed above suggest that

the cities that might be most open to thinking of climate mitigation

policy as encompassing food policy would have a number of charac-

teristics. They would be politically progressive cities already pursuing

climate mitigation with organized constituencies interested in public

health. They would have existing in-city for-profit producers, distribu-

tors, and retailers of plant-based foods with an interest in growing

their local businesses. These cities also probably would not be located

in states where large-scale agricultural producers exert sufficient polit-

ical power at the state level to be able to persuade enough state-level

elected officials to preempt city policy experiments.

III.

A M

ODEST

ROPOSAL

: E

STIMATING

GHG E

MISSIONS

ROM

ITY

OVERNMENT

ROCURED

OOD

Assuming there is a political constituency at the local level to

reduce GHG emissions from food (and consequentially to improve

public health), how might local governments integrate food policy into

climate policy? As mentioned earlier, there are many levers available

to local governments to reduce GHG emissions from food, including

through changes in the foods that local governments and other local

institutions, such as schools, purchase; subsidies that reduce the cost

ernments, are creating food policy councils, task forces and other bodies to bring

together the producers, processors, distributors, sellers and consumers on which local

food systems rely.”); see also Jonah Allon, The New Agrarian Economy Report on

Expanding Urban Agriculture in NYC,

GRITECTURE

(Feb. 22, 2021), https://

www.agritecture.com/blog/2021/2/22/the-new-agrarian-economy-report-on-ex-

panding-urban-agriculture-in-nyc.

80.

See the USDA description of urban agriculture.

U.S. D

’

TOF

GRIC

Urban

Agriculture Grants and Engagement Opportunities,

U.S. D

’

TOF

GRIC

, https://

www.farmers.gov/your-business/urban/opportunities (last visited Feb. 15, 2022).

81. See, e.g., Wylie Goodman & Jennifer Minner, Will the Urban Agricultural

Revolution Be Vertical and Soilless? A Case Study of Controlled Environment Agri-

culture in New York City, 83

AND

’

160, 167–69 (2019)

(the food pro-

duced by commercial urban farming operations in New York City is likely mostly

expensive leafy greens).

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 19 13-OCT-22 12:26

2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 743

of individuals buying fruits and vegetables; and the provision of infor-

mation to the public about the GHG emissions from different food-

stuffs.

This Article advocates that local governments estimate GHG

emissions from city-government procured food as one step in incorpo-

rating food policy into climate policy.

A. Existing Local GHG Emission Inventories and Food

Local governments in over 40 large cities in the U.S. have con-

ducted inventories of the GHG emissions from their communities.

Professor Rosenbloom’s Article on how local governments calculate

local GHG emissions emphasizes that most local governments cur-

rently count only the emissions that occur within their borders (often

called scope 1 emissions

), plus emissions from generating electricity

even if that electricity is generated beyond the city’s borders (often

called scope 2 emissions

). The resulting “sector-based” inventory fo-

cusing on GHGs that are produced in the city is consistent with the

way in which national emissions are tracked, as national inventories

count GHGs from production within the country plus imported elec-

tricity.

However, this standard sector-based inventory of local GHG

emissions significantly undercounts “scope 3 emissions,” which in-

clude the GHGs released in producing the products that cities import

for local consumption,

of which food is a prime example. Under the

standard sector-based inventories, buildings are the top local source of

GHG emissions, except in a few places where transportation is the

leading source and buildings second; food does not appear as a major

source at all.

82.

INELLI ET AL

., supra note 12 (outlining a toolkit of measures that local gov-

ernments can take to reduce meat consumption and thereby reduce GHG emissions

from food, and improve public health and animal welfare).

83.

ARKOLF ET AL

supra note

59.

84. Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 464 (“Scope 1 emissions come directly from

sources in the local jurisdiction (typically including fossil fuel combustion).”).

85. Id. (“Scope 2 emissions result indirectly from purchased electricity. Scope 2

emissions are ‘indirect’ because they occur outside the locality and ‘physically occur

at the facility where electricity is generated.’”) (excerpting AECOM, City of Chicago

Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report: Calendar Year 2015 7 (2017)).

86.

ULKELEY

, supra note 9, at 47–49.

87. Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 464-465. See also

ULKELEY

, supra note 9, at

117 (inventory focused on Scope 1 emissions “excludes the emissions implicated in

the consumption of goods and services within the city”). Rosenbloom, supra note 76,

at 464–65 (“Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions other than Scope 2 emissions

(these are typically the upstream lifecycle emissions included in a Consumption-based

Inventory, such as waste disposal). Scope 3 emissions . . . stem[

] from sources and

activities outside a locality’s boundary but are a consequence of local activities.”).

88. Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 465.

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744 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

B. Adding Consumption-Based GHG Emission Inventories?

To underscore how cities contribute to GHG emissions through

the products that they consume but do not make within their borders,

such as food, cities might undertake consumption-based accountings

of GHG emissions. Indeed, Professor Rosenbloom recommends that

cities perform consumption-based emissions inventories (CBEIs) that

include GHGs released in producing, transporting, and using the prod-

ucts that cities import, in addition to the standard sector-based inven-

tory of local GHG emissions.

To date, only a small number of local

governments have undertaken CBEIs. Rosenbloom identifies three—

San Francisco, California; Multnomah County, Oregon; and King

County, Washington—though other sources suggest that a few more

local governments in the U.S. (and abroad) have conducted CBEIs.

Existing CBEIs suggest that the diffusion of consumption-based ac-

counting would highlight that food is a significant way through which

89. Rosenbloom, supra note 76. Other advocates of cities performing consump-

tion-based emissions inventories include C40, an important organization of cities

committed to addressing climate change. It recommends that local governments per-

form consumption-based accountings of emissions “if possible”. C40 Cities Climate

Leadership Group, How to Cut Your City’s Consumption-Based Emissions,

C40

NOWLEDGE

(Jan. 2022), https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/How-to-cut-

your-city-s-consumption-based-emissions?language=EN_US. (“Conduct a consump-

tion-based emissions inventory (CBEI), if possible.”). In 2022, as this Article was in

publication, C40, New York City and London announced an initiative to undertake

consumption-based emissions inventories for London and New York City, with the

assistance of American Express. C40, Press Release, C40 announces collaboration to

map consumption-based emissions in two of the world’s biggest cities (May 9, 2022),

https://www.c40.org/news/amex-map-consumption-emissions-london-new-york-city.

90. Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 457 n.13 (“San Francisco, California, Multno-

mah County, Oregon [which includes Portland], and King County, Washington State

[which includes Seattle].”). Other local governments identified as having done CBEIs

include Eugene, Oregon; Minneapolis, Minnesota; London, UK; Gothenburg, Swe-

den. Derik Broekhoff, Peter Erickson & Georgia Piggot, Estimating Consumption-

Based Greenhouse Gas Emissions at the City Scale,

TOCKHOLM

’

NST

(2019), https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/estimating-consumption-

based-greenhouse-gas-emissions.pdf.; Creating a CBEI for Your City

Urb. Sus-

tainability Dirs. Network, https://sustainableconsumption.usdn.org/climate/cbei-guide

book/estimating-emissions. (last visited Feb. 15, 2022);

C40 K

NOWLEDGE

, supra note

89. See also

HRIS

ONES

, D

AVID

URCH

& J

ACKIE

INKEL

REA

UALITY

ANAGEMENT

ISTRICT

ONSUMPTION

BASED

EGIONAL

GHG E

MISSIONS

NVEN-

TORY

(2015), https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/files2/BAAQMD-Oct-7-2015.pdf. C40

also produced a major report based on consumption-based accountings it did for mem-

ber cities.

C40 C

ITIES

ONSUMPTION

BASED

GHG E

MISSIONS OF

C40 C

ITIES

(2018),

https://cdn.locomotive.works/sites/5ab410c8a2f42204838f797e/content_entry5ab

410fb74c4833febe6c81a/5ad4c0c274c4837def5d3b91/files/C40_GHGE-Report_

040518.pdf?1540555698. As previously noted, C40 is adding to its past efforts by

undertaking an initiative to develop consumption-based emissions inventories for

London and New York City. Supra note 89.

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 745

cities contribute to GHG emissions. Food and beverages are consist-

ently the second largest source of GHG emissions in the three local

U.S. jurisdictions that Rosenbloom identifies as having done CBEIs.

The consumption-based accountings that have been done to date

seem to rely on broadly similar methodologies, although there is no

protocol for undertaking local CBEIs that is as widely accepted by

local governments as the Global Protocol for Community-Scale

Greenhouse Gas Inventories used for the standard sector-based inven-

tories.

The CBEIs are based on estimates of consumer spending and

GHG emissions for products, often drawn from national averages. In

broad terms, the accountings start with national estimates of consumer

spending on many products, which are downscaled to reflect local

characteristics that influence consumption, such as incomes in the lo-

cality.

The accountings are not based on actual data about the

91. On food and beverages as the number two sources of emissions, see Rosen-

bloom, supra note 76, at 473–74. But see

HRISTOPHER

M. J

ONES

ONSUMPTION

ASED

REENHOUSE

NVENTORY OF

RANCISCO FROM

1990

2015 7

(2020), https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4k19r6z7 (“In 2015, [in San Francisco,] the

services category (24%) was the largest contributor to household carbon footprints,

followed by transportation (23%), food (21%), goods (16%), and housing (16%).”);

Eugene’s Consumption Emissions, in

UGENE

’

OMMUNITY

LIMATE

CTION

LAN

2.0: A R

OADMAP FOR

UGENE

’

LIMATE

OURNEY

, 65, 68 (2020), https://

www.eugene-or.gov/ImageRepository/Document?documentId=55986 (“The food and

beverages consumed in Eugene represent the largest source (16%) of community con-

sumption-based emissions.”). See also

MELIA

INN

LIMATE

-F

RIENDLY

IETS

: H

ITIES

MISSIONS AND

MPROVE

UBLIC

EALTH

3-4 (2018), https://guarini

center.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Linn-Climate-Friendly-Diets-FINAL.pdf

92.

The Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories seems

to be the dominant protocol that cities use in undertaking sector-based inventories.

EAN

ONG

, G

REENHOUSE

ROTOCOL

LOBAL

ROTOCOL FOR

OMMU-

NITY

-S

CALE

REENHOUSE

NVENTORIES

: A

CCOUNTING AND

EPORTING

TAN-

DARD FOR

ITIES

(2021), https://ghgprotocol.org/greenhouse-gas-protocol-accounting-

reporting-standard-cities. See also Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 462 (GPC is the

basis for “numerous local Sector-based Inventories”). The Global Protocol was devel-

oped by the World Resources Institute, ICLEI and C40. Id. On the history of the

standardization of approaches to measuring local GHG emissions, see, e.g.,

ULKELEY

, supra note 9, at 47–54, 110–12. On the lack of a standard protocol for

measuring GHG emissions from local consumption, see C40 Knowledge, supra note

89 (“While cities’ sector-based emissions inventories are supported by the Global

Protocol standardised framework, there is not yet an equivalent standardised frame-

work for assessing consumption-based emissions.”). But see “Scope 3 Evaluator.”

REENHOUSE

ROTOCOL

ORPORATE

ALUE

HAIN

COPE

3) A

CCOUNTING AND

EPORTING

TANDARD

(2014), https://ghgprotocol.org/standards/scope-3-standard.

93.

ONES

, supra note 91, at 13 (“Our methodology starts with detailed results from

the Consumer Expenditures Survey (CE) for the average U.S. households for the years

1990 to 2015, aggregated into a single file . . . The CE, conducted by the Bureau of

Labor Statistics (BLS), is the only annual national survey of household consumption

in the United States.”); Id. at 36

–81; see also

ROEKHOFF ET AL

supra note 93 at 11

(The CoolClimate “tool estimates locally specific patterns of consumer spending,

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746 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

amount of these products purchased in the locality whose consumption

is being inventoried. For example, the estimates of how much meat

and clothing are consumed in a city are not based on counting the

actual volume of meat and clothing bought in stores or on the internet

in the city; instead, the estimates are derived from national level

surveys of household spending adjusted to reflect local characteristics,

such as income levels, that affect consumption.

GHG emissions fac-

tors are estimated for the lifecycle of the consumer products in the

inventory (such as for the production, transportation, and use of a

product). Emissions factors are the quantity of GHG emissions per

dollar of spending on a product.

The emissions factors used in local

CBEIs seem to be based on national level data about emissions, al-

though emissions factors for some products may reflect the GHG

emissions associated with a product in the locality.

National GHG

emission factors likely elide important differences across jurisdic-

tions.

For example, if there are far fewer GHGs emitted in producing

transportation, and household energy use (using “downscaled” national data) and

combines this with national input-output analysis and fuel emissions factors from the

EPA and other sources to estimate GHG emissions“). But see id. at 11 (“One compro-

mise, adopted in a number of cities, is to pursue a hybrid approach that combines

different methods to produce a comprehensive CBEI with local resolution for some

consumption categories. For example, the ecoCity Footprint Tool—applied to Van-

couver, B.C. and other Canadian cities (as well as at least one US city, Iowa City)—

uses local activity (utility bills, transportation surveys) and waste composition data

when available. But it supplements this with national data or archetypal types of con-

sumption to fill gaps in local data.”). Rosenbloom mentions that consumption-based

accountings are more difficult to conduct than sector-based inventories and “tend to

rely on data trends as opposed to actual emissions.” Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at

490.

94.

UC Berkeley’s CoolClimate Network, which has done CBEIs for San Francisco

and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, among others, seems to have the

most refined approach to CBEI. The CoolClimate Network at UC Berkeley and the

Stockholm Environment Institute both rely on national level data about consumption

that they adjust to reflect local characteristics, and GHG emission factors for the pur-

chased goods and services from national sources. The two approaches differ princi-

pally in that CoolClimate refines the national level consumption data using six factors,

while the Stockholm Environment Institute refines it using only one factor (income).

ROEKHOFF ET AL

supra note 90;

OOL

LIMATE

ETWORK

, https://coolcli-

mate.berkeley.edu (last visited Apr. 24, 2022);

ONES

, supra note 91. CoolClimate

compares the two approaches here:

ONES

, supra note 91, at 36–39.

95.

ONES

, supra note 90, at 46 (“CEDA [Comprehensive Environmental Data

Archive] produces emission factors as kg CO2 equivalent per dollar of sector output

in producer or purchaser prices.”).

96.

ONES

, supra note 91, at 17 (“We use local data on emissions wherever possible

so long as they correspond with a consumption-based approach.”).

97.

ROEKHOFF ET AL

supra note 90; Estimating Emissions, USDN, https://sus-

tainableconsumption.usdn.org/climate/cbei-guidebook/estimating-emissions (last vis-

ited Feb. 15, 2022).

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 747

the meat consumed in one city compared with another, using national

estimates of GHGs per dollar spent on meat will not recognize that

one city’s emissions from meat are less than another’s per dollar

spent.

CBEIs attribute “GHG emissions to the final consumers of . . .

goods and services, rather than to the original producers of those GHG

emissions.”

Thus, CBEIs highlight the ways in which communities

contribute to climate change by consuming products made outside

their borders, such as food.

In so doing, CBEIs complement tradi-

tional sector-based inventories which focus on the emissions produced

within the city’s borders.

100

Local preparation of CBEIs likely would help to make the case

for adopting food policies to reduce GHG emissions because these

accountings would highlight the GHG emissions that come from pro-

ducing the foods—especially meat and dairy products—consumed in

cities. Nonetheless, there are practical disadvantages to CBEIs which

may inhibit many local governments from pursuing CBEIs until these

issues are addressed.

First, as already mentioned, there is no standard protocol for local

governments to use to prepare CBEIs. This means that local govern-

ments, which often have limited resources to devote to climate change

policy, may need to hire an external contractor to help them prepare

the CBEI.

101

Moreover, the absence of an accepted protocol means

that local government officials may feel that they have little guidance

in setting standards for the preparation of a CBEI. The lack of an

established protocol is by no means an insurmountable barrier to the

diffusion of CBEIs at the local level, but it is likely a reason why

CBEIs have not yet caught on at the local level.

98.

C40 C

ITIES

ONSUMPTION

BASED

GHG E

MISSIONS OF

C40 C

ITIES

(2018),

https://cdn.locomotive.works/sites/5ab410c8a2f42204838f797e/content_entry

5ab410fb74c4833febe6c81a/5ad4c0c274c4837def5d3b91/files/C40_GHGE-Report_

040518.pdf?1540555698.

99.

ONES

, supra note 91, at 5.

100. Id.

101.

Many cities—including some of the most populous in the U.S.—do not seem to

undertake even sector-based inventories on an annual basis.

ARKOLF ET AL

supra

note 59, at 5 (“Of the 45 cities analyzed in this report, none have GHG inventories for

years 2018 or 2019, and only two have GHG inventories for 2017 (an additional 10

have inventories for 2016). Similarly, the lower rate of activity among the smaller

cities (only six of the climate action plans came from among the group of cities with

the 76th- to 100th-largest populations) suggests the challenges that resource con-

straints can pose for developing GHG reduction targets and related emissions invento-

ries.”). On the additional resources that CBEIs would demand of local governments,

see Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 490 (“[C]onsumption-based Inventories are more

complicated and more expensive to assemble.”).

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748 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

Second, many local governments may be reluctant to undertake

CBEIs at this point because the current methodologies for CBEIs can-

not easily be used to monitor the impacts of local government policy

efforts to reduce emissions from consumption. As discussed above,

the key inputs to CBEIs, such as the estimates of consumer spending

and the GHG emissions associated with that spending, are often based

on national level estimates, not actual data about local consumption or

emissions from products consumed locally. Thus, if a local govern-

ment were to adopt policies to discourage consumption of foods

whose production releases many GHGs, the resultant reductions in

emissions attributable to the locality would not likely be captured in

the CBEI. In short, the local government would not be able to esti-

mate—or show its constituents—how much its policies are contribut-

ing to reducing GHGs. The national estimates of consumer spending

and emissions that are the basis for estimating GHG emissions from

local consumption are not sufficiently granular to reflect changes over

time in consumption due to local government policies.

102

Again, this

practical disadvantage with CBEIs could be addressed through meth-

odological innovations in consumption-based accounting. But for

now, the inability of local governments to use CBEIs to track the im-

pacts of policies that they adopt is likely a factor discouraging local

preparation of CBEIs.

C. Estimating GHG Emissions From City-Government Procured

Food

While it is likely desirable for cities to undertake CBEIs, we en-

dorse a more modest step in this Article: cities (with the resources)

should estimate the GHG emissions from the city government’s pro-

curement of food. This is a more modest endeavor than undertaking a

CBEI because it involves estimating GHG emissions only from one

product consumed in cities: food. Also, the city government would

estimate only the GHG emissions from the food procured by the city

government and local government institutions such as schools, hospi-

tals, and jails—not the emissions from the food that city residents

purchase. By contrast, a comprehensive CBEI would estimate the

GHG emissions from food as well as other products consumed in cit-

ies, and from products consumed by the community, not just the city

government.

102. However, San Francisco’s 2020 consumption-based GHG inventory suggests

that there have been methodological advances in consumption-based accounting.

ONES

, supra note 91. It was done by Christopher Jones of CoolClimate Network at

UC Berkeley.

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 749

City governments and their agencies are major purchasers of

food, which underscores the value of trying to count the GHG emis-

sions from their food purchases. For example, New York City and its

agencies spend “a combined $500 million on food each year.”

103

Ac-

cording to the Center for Good Food Purchasing, “if NYC shifted just

15 percent of meat purchases to plant proteins, it would decrease an-

nual greenhouse emissions by over 100 million pounds of carbon-di-

oxide equivalent—the same as taking nearly 10,000 passenger

vehicles off the road.”

104

Under the proposal, cities would estimate the GHG emissions

from the food that they purchase based on how much they spend on

different categories of food, or the volumes purchased of different

food categories.

105

We recognize the difficulties that cities might en-

counter in gathering data about how much money they are spending

on different categories of food or how much they are buying by

weight of different categories, especially the first time that they com-

pile this information. For example, food procurement in New York

City is highly decentralized, with multiple agencies, some of which

are not governmental entities, purchasing the food for which the city

government pays.

106

A city would need to develop the capacity to

track spending on different categories of food, or the volumes of dif-

ferent foods purchased, perhaps with the assistance of its suppliers.

To make the data gathering more manageable, the city govern-

ment might focus on estimating spending or volumes purchased of

only a subset of the food products for which the city pays, such as the

food products that are likely to be the largest food sources of GHG

103. Held, supra note 13.

104. Id.

105. See, e.g.,

ICHARD

AITE

, D

ANIEL

ENNARD

& G

ERARD

OZZI

, W

ORLD

NST

., T

RACKING

ROGRESS

OWARD THE

OOL

OOD

LEDGE

: S

ETTING

LIMATE

ARGETS

, T

RACKING

ETRICS

, U

SING THE

OOL

OOD

ALCULATOR

AND

ELATED

UIDANCE FOR

LEDGE

IGNATORIES

25 (2019), https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/

tracking-progress-toward-cool-food-pledge.pdf (explaining how estimates of weight

can be derived from spending estimates).

106.

New York City contracts with many different entities, such as centers that serve

senior citizens, to provide a range of services, including food, and these entities

purchase the food for which the city’s funding pays. Held, supra note 13. This frag-

mentation makes it hard for the city government to acquire data about how much it is

spending on food.

AYOR

’

OOD

’

ITYWIDE

OALS

& S

TRATEGY FOR

THE

MPLEMENTATION OF

OOD

URCHASING

2, 4, 5 (2021), https://

www1.nyc.gov/assets/foodpolicy/downloads/pdf/GFP-Citywide-Goals-Strategy.pdf.

The city has “data on the source of the food . . . for less than half of the total

purchases due to gaps in traceability.” Held, supra note 13.

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750 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

emissions, like meat and dairy products.

107

Another way of reducing

the information gathering would be to limit the agencies whose food

purchases were counted to a subset of city agencies, such as the

agency (or agencies) spending the most on food in the city. For exam-

ple, in New York City, the Department of Education accounts for

$200 million out of the $500 million that the city government spends

on food.

108

To estimate the GHG emissions from the city’s food procure-

ment, the city would apply GHG emissions factors to the estimates of

the city’s spending on different food categories. There are existing

data sets of GHG emissions factors for different categories of food.

109

These data sets estimate the GHG emissions associated with different

stages of the “life” of different food categories (such as the GHG

emissions from the production of the food, its transportation, etc.).

110

While there is no established protocol for local government

CBEIs, the World Resources Institute (WRI), a widely respected envi-

ronmental nonprofit, has developed the “Cool Food Calculator” that

cities can use to estimate the GHG emissions from their purchases of

different categories of foods.

111

Under the organization’s “Cool Food”

pledge, signatories commit to reducing their emissions from the food

that they purchase by 25% by 2030, a target in line with the Paris

Agreement.

112

Signatories are required to annually report, by volume,

their purchases of certain categories of foods whose production gener-

ally generates high levels of GHG emissions.

113

Drawing on published

data, WRI has incorporated into its Cool Food Calculator emissions

factors for different food categories.

114

These emissions factors (de-

107. The Cool Food Pledge, administered by the World Resources Institute, provides

a source of information about which foods are likely leading sources of GHG emis-

sions. The Pledge requires that signatories report the volume of a select number of

food products that the signatory buys each year and maintains that the food items for

which purchase volumes must be reported “collectively tend to account for more than

80 percent of signatories’ total food-related agricultural supply chain emissions, land

use, and carbon opportunity costs.”

AITE

ET AL

supra note 106 at 11. Existing

consumption-based inventories also might be consulted to determine the food prod-

ucts whose emissions should be counted. See Rosenbloom, supra note 76 (identifying

three existing local government consumption-based GHG accountings).

108. Held, supra note 13; see

AYOR

’

OOD

’

supra note 105, at 5.

109.

AITE ET AL

., supra note 105 at 13 (Table 2: Comparison of Three Recent Life

Cycle Meta-analyses, Including the Data Set in the Cool Food Calculator).

110. Id.

111.

AITE ET AL

., supra note 105.

112. Pledge,

OOL

OOD

, https://coolfood.org/pledge/ (last visited Feb. 15, 2022).

113.

AITE ET AL

supra note 105, at 11 (Box 3: Reporting Food Purchases By

Type).

114. Id. at 12–13.

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 751

nominated in GHGs per kg of food category) are based on GHG emis-

sions from the production, “transport, processing, packaging, and

upstream losses of the supply chain” of different foods in different

regions of the world.

115

Under some conditions, signatories may rely

on more granular country-level data instead of the regional data about

emissions factors in the Cool Food Calculator.

116

The Cool Food Cal-

culator “estimates [GHG emissions] for each food type and totals

them.”

117

WRI does not make public the GHG emissions from indi-

vidual signatories’ food purchases,

118

but there does not appear to be

any obstacle to cities making public the calculator’s estimates of the

emissions from the signatories’ food purchases and changes over time

in these emissions. Indeed, as this Article was in publication, New

York City published online estimates calculated by WRI of the GHG

emissions from food purchased by six City agencies in 2019.

119

The Cool Food Pledge and the Cool Food Calculator were not

designed to enable cities in particular to track the GHG emissions

from the food that they procure, and most of the signatories to the

Pledge are not cities. As of this writing, New York City is the only

U.S. city to have signed the Pledge, although some cities from other

countries have signed.

120

As mentioned above, Washington, D.C.’s

legislated commitment to reduce emissions from its food procurement,

is in line with the Cool Food Pledge.

121

Washington, D.C. is also leg-

islatively required to adopt a mechanism for tracking the GHG emis-

sions from its food procurement, and it potentially could use the Cool

Food Calculator, which would help to build momentum among cities

for the tool.

122

To use the Cool Food Calculator, cities would first

115. Id. at 13 (Table 2 — Comparison of Three Recent Life Cycle Meta-analyses,

Including the Data Set in the Cool Food Calculator) (note a); see also id. at 12, 13.

116. Id. at 13.

117. Id. at 12.

118. Id. at 6.

119.

NYC Food Policy, Dashboard: NYC Food Purchasing at a Glance, https://

www1.nyc.gov/site/foodpolicy/good-food-purchasing/dashboard.page (The Carbon

FootPrint of the City’s Food Purchases).

120.

OOL

OOD

, https://coolfood.org/pledge/ (list of signatories).

121. Supra note 16 and accompanying text.

122. In 2021, Washington, D.C. adopted the Green Food Purchasing Amendment

Act, which instructs the City to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from food that

the City purchases by 25% by 2030 from a “baseline assessment” established by the

Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE).

D.C. C

ODE

§ 8-151.09b(d)

(2022). The legislation also directs the DOEE to “adopt a methodology, . . . for the

District to estimate, to the extent practicable, the greenhouse gas emissions that occur

through the life cycle of food and beverages purchased by covered agencies, including

by third-party vendors that provide food and beverages on behalf of the covered agen-

cies.”

D.C. C

ODE

§ 8-151.09b(a)(1) (2022). Lehner and Rosenberg suggest that bills

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752 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

need to prepare a food purchase database, logging the quantity of food

purchased by weight across a set of food-item categories (e.g. beef,

lamb, poultry, milk, etc.).

123

Some cities may already record this in-

formation. Others, however, may need to obtain this information from

“food service providers – who, in turn, may need to obtain data from

their vendors and suppliers for certain items.”

124

For cities without

this data at hand, the WRI recommends starting the process of data

collection by focusing on the most high-emissions food, such as meat

and dairy products.

125

Data must be recorded in units of weight (e.g.

kilograms, pounds) in order to be used in the Cool Food Calculator;

thus, cities may need to establish protocols for converting from met-

rics such as gallons, cases, and dollars to units of weight.

126

The big-

gest hurdle for cities in using the Cool Food Calculator will likely be

setting up a system for collecting their food purchase data in a usable

format. However, once a system is in place, using the Cool Food Cal-

culator should be a relatively simple way for cities to “track progress

towards emissions reduction targets.”

127

The existence of the Cool Food Calculator means that there is

already a tool, produced and maintained by a prominent environmen-

tal organization with name brand recognition in local government cir-

cles, that can be used to estimate GHG emissions from local food

procurement. Given the small number of municipal government signa-

tories to the Cool Food Pledge, it is premature to describe the calcula-

tor as the accepted protocol for estimating these emissions. Moreover,

the calculator is not perfect; for example, it likely would produce more

accurate estimates of emissions if the emissions factors were more

granular and not based on emissions in different regions of the

world.

128

Additionally, recent research has found that using the con-

ventional carbon dioxide equivalent metrics to measure the global

similar to the legislation that passed in Washington, D.C. have been introduced in

other jurisdictions.

EHNER

& R

OSENBERG

, supra note 2, at 235.

123.

AITE ET AL

, supra note 105.

124. Id. Note that strategies for “obtaining food purchase data from supply chain

partners” are listed in Table A-1.

125. Id. at 24. WRI suggests that focusing efforts on high-emitting foods will allow

cities “to capture the majority of their food-related emissions while keeping the data

collection workload manageable.” Id.

126. Id. at 25. It would be beneficial to collaborate with supply chain partners in

developing a “practicable way for tracking the data over time,” so that data collection

in the proper units becomes an integrated part of the procurement protocol. Id. at 24.

The WRI has resources available to help cities with these conversions.

127. Id. at 1.

128.

The calculator’s creators seem to recognize this limitation.

AITE ET AL

supra note 105, at 13.

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 753

warming potential of emissions “can misrepresent the impact of short-

lived climate pollutants—which, importantly for agriculture, include

methane—on future long-term impacts on global temperature.”

129

Nonetheless, the existence of the calculator means that local govern-

ments are not left to their own devices to the same extent as they are in

attempting to undertake CBEIs.

130

129.

AITE ET AL

. supra note 105 at 8.

130. Even if the Cool Food Pledge and Calculator do not emerge as a standard for

estimating GHG emissions from local government food procurement, other tools may

develop to enable these estimates to be made. Local governments and institutions

already have been undertaking analyses of the GHG emissions from their procure-

ment, including, but not limited to, their procurement of food. These analyses are

sometimes called “supply-chain analyses” because they analyze the GHG emissions

from the products that local governments are consuming; these analyses suggest the

feasibility of the supply chain analysis of food paid for by a city. Id. See also, e.g.,

RUCOST

USTAINABLE

UPPLY

HAIN

NALYSIS

: E

XECUTIVE

UMMARY

EPORT

(2016), https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/sustainable-supply-

chain-analysis-2016-executive-summary-final.pdf (supply chain analysis for Portland,

Oregon prepared by Trucost); Supply Chain Sustainability Report,

LAMEDA

NTY

USTAINABILITY

, https://www.acgov.org/sustain/what/purchasing/report.htm (last vis-

ited Apr. 24, 2022). (Alameda County, California supply chain analysis prepared by

Good Company);

ENNA

ARMON

& T

RACY

ISHER

ETRO

REENHOUSE

MIS-

SIONS

NVENTORY

FY 2016–17

(2018), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/

5e1380910c47256ea5b5c982/t/6041b5a4e3b52c4f1ba6cd4d/1614919082218/Port-

land_Metro-FY2017_GHG_Inventory_Report-FINAL.pdf (Oregon Metro GHG in-

ventory for internal operations, which includes supply chain analysis for internal

operations at 13).

A 2015 meta-analysis of supply-chain analyses examined analyses from 15 city,

county and regional governments, and city parks and recreation and country transit

agencies.

EST

OAST

LIMATE

ORUM

UPPLY

HAIN

REENHOUSE

NVEN-

TORY

ETA

-A

NALYSIS

(2015), https://westcoastclimateforum.com/files/re-

lated_documents/TA%20Final.pdf. Notably, the 2015 meta-analysis indicates that

“construction and maintenance” is by far the largest source of supply-chain emissions

for the 17 public agencies (15 local governments or agencies plus two state govern-

ments) in the analysis; “[f]ood, lodging and transport” is a relatively minor source of

supply-chain emissions for these governments. Id. at 11 (fig. 6) (percentage of supply

chain emissions, by organizational type, and purchasing category). It would be inter-

esting to know the estimated emissions from food distinct from transport and lodging;

and whether the local governments whose analyses are included in the meta-analysis

operate schools, jails and hospitals that tend to serve a lot of food, or whether the

included local governments’ food procurement is limited to feeding people employed

by the local government.

As with CBEIs, there appear to be various contractors assisting local govern-

ments with these supply chain analyses, and they appear to use a broadly similar

methodology. The analysis sorts the local government’s spending on procurement into

categories used by “Federal statistical agencies.”

RUCOST

at 4 n.4. Then GHG emis-

sions factors are applied to these various categories of expenditures. The GHG emis-

sions factors come from lifecycle assessment tools, such as EPA’s US

Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Models, which “provides impact factors per

dollar spent based on national data from federal sources.”

OOD

OMPANY

NALYSIS

USTAINABILITY

MPACTS OF

LAMEDA

OUNTY

UPPLY

HAIN

XPENDITURES

XECUTIVE

UMMARY

(2019), https://www.acgov.org/sustain/documents/supp-

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754 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

Estimating the GHG emissions from food procurement may not

only seem more feasible for local governments than CBEIs but also

more useful. As mentioned above, the methodologies currently used to

conduct CBEIs mean that they cannot be used to track and showcase

the impacts of local government policy efforts to reduce GHG emis-

sions from food. This is because the key inputs to CBEIs—estimates

of consumer spending and GHG emission factors for consumer prod-

ucts—are typically based on national level estimates, not actual data

about local consumer expenditures or the GHG emissions of the spe-

cific products consumed locally.

In contrast, cities could likely track and highlight the effects of

changes in their procurement policies if cities estimated the GHG

emissions from the food for which they pay. As set out above, a key

input to these GHG estimates would be estimates of the amount that

the city government is spending on different categories of food, or the

volumes of these different foodstuffs. If a city decided to reduce its

purchases of high GHG-foods, such as meat and dairy products, the

city’s spending on these foods, or the volumes of them that it

purchases, would decline. Even if the emissions factors for the foods

remain constant, the decline in the spending or the volumes for certain

categories of foods would reduce the city’s GHG emissions from food

procurement, because these emissions are a function of the amount of

food purchased as well as the emissions factors. Thus, a local govern-

ment that implemented policies to reduce GHG emissions from food

procurement would likely be able to show progress in reducing these

emissions, something which might appeal to local policymakers. No-

tably, local officials in New York City have called for tracking GHG

emissions from food procurement,

131

and the City’s recent release of

GHG estimates from food procured by six City agencies would appear

to be a step in this direction.

132

lychainreport.pdf. See US Environmentally-Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) Models,

U.S. E

’

ROT

. A

GENCY

, https://www.epa.gov/land-research/us-environmentally-

extended-input-output-useeio-models (last visited Feb. 15, 2022). See also the

description of the methodology for supply-chain analyses in

EST

OAST

LIMATE

ORUM

, supra at 8 (“The estimate stems from multiplying the quantity of purchases,

or spend, (the first term) by carbon intensity of a given economic sector per dollar

spent (the second term). The product of this equation is then summed across purchas-

ing categories to estimate total supply chain emissions of an organization.”).

131.

For example, in the Democratic primary for mayor in 2021, the current mayor

of New York City Eric Adams stated that “NYC should track its emissions from food

procurement and consumption.” Mayoral Food Forum 2021: Town Hall on the Future

of Food in New York City,

ITY

& H

ARVEST

, https://www.cityharvest.org/2021/01/

mayoral-forum/ (last visited Feb. 15, 2022).

132. Supra note 119 and accompanying text.

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 755

In addition to the feasibility and utility of estimating GHG emis-

sions from city food procurement, a third reason for estimating these

emissions is the potential that the information generated could help to

lay the groundwork for expanding the range of local policies to reduce

GHG emissions from food. The absence of food from local inventories

of GHG emissions means that local policymakers currently lack a

complete picture of the ways that their cities are contributing to cli-

mate change.

133

One would not expect the local emissions profile to

perfectly match the national profile, since urban areas are by no means

a perfect microcosm of the nation as a whole. However, the glaring

absence of major contributors to national emissions from local emis-

sions inventories undermines the value of the local inventories, espe-

cially when casual observation suggests that the locality contributes to

emissions from these sources.

Local inventories are notable for not capturing the GHG emis-

sions from products consumed in cities but produced elsewhere. The

EPA’s inventory of national GHG emissions identifies transportation,

electricity, industry, the commercial and residential sectors, and agri-

culture as sources of GHG emissions.

134

Emissions from four of these

sectors are reflected in the standard sector-based local inventories of

GHG emissions. Transportation sector emissions, the top source of

emissions in the EPA’s inventory, are included in local inventories.

135

Electricity sector emissions, the second largest source of emissions

133. In emphasizing the importance of tracking GHG emissions from food purchased

by local governments to promote a more accurate understanding of local contributions

to climate change, we draw on the argument of Professor Rosenbloom that “[f]ailing

to inventory and regulate consumption-based GHGs may dramatically skew the justi-

fication and accuracy of local regulatory actions.” Rosenbloom, supra note 76, at 497.

134. See

NVENTORY

, supra note 1, at ES-26 tbl. ES-6. This table provides emissions

totals for the transportation, industry, agriculture, commercial and residential sectors;

notably, electricity is listed as a separate line item and the emissions from electricity

are not distributed to the emission totals for each end use sector. Electricity emissions

are allocated to the end-use sectors of transportation, industry, agriculture, and com-

mercial and residential in Table ES-7: U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Economic

Sector with Electricity-Related Emissions Distributed (MMT CO2 Eq.). Id. at ES-27.

135.

The transportation sector GHG emissions in the NYC GHG Inventory includes

buses, heavy duty trucks, medium duty trucks, passenger cars, solid waste collection

vehicles, railways, marine navigation and aviation. See data filtered by “citywide” and

sector “transportation.” NYC Mayor’s Off. of Sustainability, Inventory of New York

City Greenhouse Gas Emissions, https://nyc-ghg-inventory.cusp.nyu.edu/ (last visited

Feb. 15, 2022). In EPA’s national inventory, the emissions totals for transportation are

in Table ES-6, which does not allocate to this sector the grid supplied electricity emis-

sions attributable to this sector. There is not a clear definition of “transportation”

associated with that table. However, the transportation section of EPA’s inventory

includes GHGs from “passenger cars, light duty trucks, medium and heavy duty

trucks, buses, motorcycles, commercial aircraft, other aircraft, ships and boats, rail

and pipelines.” See

NVENTORY

, supra note 1, at tbl. 2-13.

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756 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

nationally, and emissions from the residential and commercial sectors,

are captured in the local inventories under the buildings category (also

referred to as the stationary energy category). For example, in New

York City’s sector-based inventory, the stationary energy category in-

cludes emissions from grid-supplied electricity, and fossil fuels com-

busted onsite in buildings.

136

Noticeably absent from the sector-based

local inventories are emissions from agriculture or food. It seems

anomalous that food, which is the end product of agriculture and is

definitely consumed in cities, is not included among the sources of

local GHG emissions in the standard local inventory.

137

Although be-

yond the focus of this article, another notable omission from the stan-

dard local sector-based inventories are the emissions arising in

producing industrial products used in cities,

138

such as construction

136. The NYC GHG Inventory defines “stationary energy” to include “energy used

by buildings and other stationary sources, as well as fugitive emissions from natural

gas distribution within city limits.” The stationary sources include biofuel, electricity,

natural gas, natural gas, steam, #2 fuel oil, #4 fuel oil and #6 fuel oil. NYC Mayor’s

Off. of Sustainability, supra note 135.

In the EPA GHG Inventory, Table ES-6 identifies the GHG emissions from the

commercial and residential sector categories; the emissions figures for these sectors

do not include the grid supplied electricity emissions attributed to the sectors. There is

no definition of “commercial” or “residential” that corresponds to Table ES-6. How-

ever, later, in the report, commercial and residential sector emissions are defined as

the direct, on-site use of fossil fuels, such as “the consumption of natural gas and

petroleum for heating and cooking.” See

NVENTORY

, supra note 1, at ES-14. In Table

ES-7, electricity emissions are re-allocated to end-use sectors. Id. at ES-27 tbl. ES-7.

137.

Table ES-6 in EPA’s inventory does not provide a cohesive definition of the

“agriculture” category.

NVENTORY

, supra note 1, at ES-26. However, agricultural

emissions are defined at the outset of the inventory’s chapter on agriculture. The EPA

inventory of GHGs measures agriculture emissions from a variety of sources, includ-

ing “methane (CH

) and nitrous oxide (N

O) emissions from enteric fermentation in

domestic livestock, livestock manure management, rice cultivation, agricultural soil

management, and field burning of agricultural residues; as well as carbon dioxide

(CO

) emissions from liming and urea fertilization.”

EPA, I

NVENTORY

, supra note 1,

at 5-1. Additionally, GHG fluxes “from agriculture-related land-use and land-use con-

version activities, such as cultivation of cropland, grassland fires, aquaculture, and

conversion of forest land to cropland are presented in the Land Use, Land-Use

Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) chapter [of the inventory];” “emissions from statio-

nary and mobile on-farm energy use [are] reported in the Energy chapter under the

Industrial sector emissions;” and “methane and N2O emissions from mobile on-farm

energy use are reported in the Energy chapter under mobile fossil fuel combustion

emissions.”

EPA, I

NVENTORY

, supra note 1, at 5-1.

138. Table ES-6 in EPA’s inventory does not define the “industry” category.

NVEN-

TORY

, supra note 1, at ES-26. However, later in the report, the “industrial processes”

whose emissions are counted in that chapter are defined as including “iron and steel

production & metallurgical coke production;” cement production; petrochemical pro-

duction and many other processes. Id. at 4-2 fig. 4-1. The emissions attributed to

industry in Table ES-6 do not appear to include the emissions associated with the

electricity used by industry; however, in Table ES-7, industry emissions include emis-

sions from electricity used by industry. Id. at ES-27 tbl. ES-7. Industry is the number

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2022] INTEGRATING FOOD 757

materials like steel.

139

The absence of food (and industrial products)

from local inventories likely reduces understanding at the local gov-

ernment level of the extent to which cities contribute to important

sources of emissions at the national level, and holds back policy

development.

Counting GHG emissions from food paid for by the city could

provide information and a basis for city policymakers and advocates

to emphasize that food choices have implications for the climate, not

just the individuals eating the food. The GHG emissions from food

production are an externality that are not currently priced into food

products, and so people—and governments—can ignore them in buy-

ing food. Tracking the GHG emissions from food procured by city

governments could be a small step toward increasing awareness

among local policymakers, advocates, and the public at large of the

consequences of the current levels of meat and dairy consumption for

the climate. Tracking these emissions also could set the stage for more

local governments to commit to reducing emissions from food pro-

cured by cities, and monitoring whether these GHG reduction commit-

ments are met.

140

Once cities figure out how to count the GHG

emissions from the food products that they themselves purchase, they

might expand their GHG inventories to include consumption-based

accounting of GHG emissions from food and other products purchased

generally within the city, by private actors as well as governments.

ONCLUSION

In 2019, Republican politicians attacked the Green New Deal as a

threat to people’s continuing right to eat hamburgers.

141

While the

Green New Deal never included a threat to ban hamburgers,

142

the

one source of U.S. emissions when the emissions for the electricity that industry uses

are attributed to industry. Id. at ES-27.

139.

On embodied carbon in buildings, see

ARBON

EADERSHIP

ORUM

, https://

carbonleadershipforum.org/ (last visited Feb. 15, 2022).

140.

In 2021, Washington D.C. simultaneously legislated to track the GHG emis-

sions from the food it procures and reduce the GHG emissions from this food.

D.C.

ODE

§ 8-151.09b (2022). See also Daniel Zarrilli, 7 Climate Steps for the Adams

Administration to Move New York City Ahead,

OTHAM

AZETTE

(Dec. 27, 2021),

https://www.gothamgazette.com/games-archive/130-opinion/10994-7-climate-steps-

eric-adams-administration-new-york-city (once New York City counts scope 3 emis-

sions, it could “upgrad[e] procurement rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from

purchased products and food”).

141. Emily

Atkin, The Potency of Republicans’ Hamburger Lie,

EPUBLIC

(Mar. 4, 2019), https://newrepublic.com/article/153187/potency-republicans-

hamburger-lie.

142. Id.

\\jciprod01\productn\N\NYL\24-3\NYL304.txt unknown Seq: 34 13-OCT-22 12:26

758 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 24:725

episode demonstrates the political risks of taking on the consumption

of meat to limit climate change, at least at the national level. Many

people would likely be uncomfortable with, if not downright hostile

to, the federal government attempting to reduce people’s consumption

of meat, which is an important source of protein and other nutrients

and a part of American food culture.

This Article suggests that progressive politicians in leading

American cities may have more political latitude to experiment with

policies to reduce meat and dairy consumption as part of limiting cli-

mate change—and improving public health and animal welfare. As if

to prove the point, while reducing meat consumption has been fodder

for attack politics at the federal level, the city of Washington, D.C. has

passed an ordinance mandating that the city reduce the GHG emis-

sions from the food that it purchases.

143

This Article endorses one

modest step to which Washington, D.C. already has committed itself,

and that other local governments could take as well, to draw attention

to the harms to the planet from our food choices: tracking the GHG

emissions resulting from the foods that city governments procure. Do-

ing so might set the stage for reducing these emissions and broadening

an understanding of the ways that people are contributing to climate

change.

143. See supra note 16.