Climate Policies Promoting Plant-Based Diets Could Save Millions of Lives

More than 6 million diet-related deaths a year could be prevented by 2040 if nine countries representing 50% of the world’s population and 70% of the world’s emissions adopted climate policies that promoted plant-based diets, according to a study in The Lancet Planetary Health. For each nation—Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States—researchers compared current climate change policies with two alternative scenarios: one that included a shift toward a flexitarian diet and another with a 50% flexitarian diet and 50% vegan diet. Read about the Physicians Committee’s petition to the White House regarding diet and climate change here.