As
a response to the huge attention to the devastating effects of
climate change some five years ago, many organic standard setters
rushed into making proposals for how to address this in standards.
Those efforts range from simplistic and symbolic issues like a ban on
air freight to complex scientific approaches based on life cycle
assessment. We have discussed many times before (in this paper) how
simplistic and symbolic actions such as an air-freight ban can have
unfair and undesirable effects, e.g. on smallholders in developing
countries, or how in general, the desire to regulate all and
everybody sometimes is an example of how the best can be the enemy of
the good.
Product labelling is
a delicate tool. Thirty years of organic labelling and eco labelling
have given us some experiences of what works and what doesn't work.
Simple things like "chlorine free paper" and "grown
without chemical fertilisers" work very well. More complex
criteria are more difficult. Their credibility is mostly more
depending on who is behind the label than the actual content of the
label. For instance, most consumers of fair trade products probably
have little knowledge of what those standards really mean, and even
less of how they are certified.
Climate labelling
tries to boil down very complex matters into one simple message. And
also matters for which science are still struggling to give simple
answers. Methane emissions from ruminants is one such issue where the
scientific basis is very thin; there are not many measurements of
methane emissions in field conditions. Similarly nitrous oxide
emissions caused by farm methods and methane emissions from
cultivation of rice are not researched sufficiently to allow for very
clear answers to our questions. The choice will be between very
simplistic, and therefore not very relevant and potentially
counter-productive, standards and a scientific approach which is
impossible to communicate in the market place, very expensive to
implement and not predictable in how it will work, to the detriment
of the producer, who might fail even if she or he did the right
thing.
It has a bigger
effect on the climate how your overall consumption pattern is than if
you chose a climate labelled steak over a non-climate labelled steak.
And even the perfect "climate neutral product" will have a
bad climate effect if you drive half an hour by car in order to get
it. There are also some conflicting demands emerging from the
emphasis on climate effects. Supposedly slowly growing livestock emits more methane - per kg meat - than livestock the grows rapidly.
But rapid growth is mainly accomplished by the use of concentrates,
which is against the nature of ruminants and therefore not as natural
or healthy.
To offer "climate
labelling" as the response to people with climate anxiety may
also make people believe that they are solving the problem with small
changes in their consumption pattern, and divert them from taking
other necessary actions, such as political demands to their
governments. The same holds for "climate offsetting" by
which a certain product is rendered "carbon neutral" by
means of paying for carbon offsetting somewhere else. It results in
the interesting effect that your bicycle trip is worse for the
climate than taking a round the world trip by airplane. It is like
your emissions never happened. But of course they have. There are
not enough offset opportunities to counteract all greenhouse gas
release. All in all climate change is too serious a threat to be
mainly left for consumer choice to deal with. Organic
standard-setters should not participate in making veils for covering
up this inconvenient truth.
leader The Organic Standard issue 124 (forthcoming)
You can read more about climate anxiety at: http://www.theboywhodeniedwolf.com/
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