Richard Waite

World Resources Institute · Food Program

This technical note describes the State of Climate Action series’ methodology for identifying sectors that must transform, translating these transformations into global mitigation targets primarily for 2030, 2035 and 2050 and selecting indicators with datasets to monitor annual change. It also outlines the report’s approach for assessing progress m...

This report helps consumer-facing food companies with climate and other sustainability goals plan to source not only “less meat” but also “better meat.” Because “better meat” has many meanings, this report reviews evidence on the links between meat production, climate change, and other aspects of sustainability, looking across production practices...

This technical note describes the State of Climate Action 2023’s methodology for identifying sectors that must transform, translating these transformations into global mitigation targets primarily for 2030 and 2050 and selecting indicators with datasets to monitor annual change. It also outlines the report’s approach for assessing progress made tow...

The State of Climate Action 2023 provides the world’s most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the gap in climate action across sectors to limit global warming to 1.5°C. It finds that recent progress toward 1.5°C-aligned targets isn’t happening at the pace and scale necessary and highlights where action must urgently accelerate this decade to red...

After agriculture, wood harvest is the human activity that has most reduced the storage of carbon in vegetation and soils1,2. Although felled wood releases carbon to the atmosphere in various steps, the fact that growing trees absorb carbon has led to different carbon-accounting approaches for wood use, producing widely varying estimates of carbon...

In this report, WRI researchers explore how rising demand for food, wood and shelter is squeezing land that’s needed for storing carbon and protecting biodiversity. This research uses new modeling to give a true global picture of the carbon opportunity costs for land use and proposes a four-pronged approach–produce, protect, reduce, restore–for sus...

This technical note accompanies the State of Climate Action series, part of Systems Change Lab. It describes our methods for identifying systems that must transform, translating these systemwide transformations into global mitigation targets for 2030 and 2050, and selecting indicators with accompanying datasets for us to use to monitor annual chang...

The State of Climate Action 2022 provides a comprehensive assessment of the global gap in climate action across the world’s highest-emitting systems, highlighting where recent progress made in reducing GHG emissions, scaling up carbon removal, and increasing climate finance must accelerate over the next decade to keep the Paris Agreement’s goal to...

Animal-based foods are nutritious and especially important to livelihoods and diets in developing countries, but they also inefficiently use resources. Beef production is becoming more efficient, but forests are still being cut down for new pasture. People say they want to eat more plants, but meat consumption is still rising. Despite seeming contr...

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires far-reaching transformations across power generation, buildings, industry, transport, land use, coastal zone management, and agriculture, as well as the immediate scale-up of technological carbon removal and climate finance. This report translates these transitions into 40 targets for 2030 and 2050, with me...

Agriculture needs to close an 11-gigaton greenhouse gas (GHG) gap between expected emissions in 2050 and those needed to hold global warming below 2oC. Several noteworthy reports have proposed a range of mitigation options. Our World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future, issued jointly with the World Bank and the UN, laid out 22 sol...

Cool Food is a global initiative that helps dining facilities commit to a science-based target to reduce their food-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25 percent by 2030 relative to 2015. This paper establishes the baseline estimate for Cool Food members’ collective food-related GHG emissions and also reports the group’s 2030 reduction targe...

To keep the window open to limit global warming to 1.5 C, countries need to accelerate transformation towards a net-zero emissions future across all sectors at a far faster pace than recent trends, according to this report from World Resources Institute and ClimateWorks Foundation, with input from Climate Action Tracker. For example, the report fin...

How can the world feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050 while also advancing economic development, protecting and restoring forests, and stabilizing the climate? It won’t be easy and will require major new efforts, but it can be done. Here are 10 important examples of technologies that can be part of the solution. https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/07...

Can we feed the world without destroying it? The ‘World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future’ shows that it is possible – but there is no silver bullet. This final report focuses on technical opportunities and policies for cost-effective scenarios to meet food, land-use, and greenhouse gas emissions goals in 2050 in ways that can al...

Seawater quality is critical for island and coastal communities dependent on coastal tourism. Improper management of coastal development and inland watersheds can decrease seawater quality and adversely impact marine life, human health, and economic growth. Agricultural runoff and improper sewage management compromise nearshore water quality in man...

Beef and climate change are in the news these days, from cows’ alleged high-methane farts (fact check: they’re actually mostly high-methane burps) to comparisons with cars and airplanes (fact check: the world needs to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture to sufficiently rein in global warming). And as with so many things in the public...

By 2050, nearly 10 billion people will live on the planet. Can we produce enough food sustainably? The synthesis report of the World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows that it is possible – but there is no silver bullet. This report offers a five-course menu of solutions to ensure we can feed everyone without increasing emis...

21 Killer charts succinctly present a five-course menu of solutions for sustainably feeding the population in 2050: (1) Reduce growth in demand for food and other agricultural products; (2) Increase food production without expanding agricultural land; (3) Protect and restore natural ecosystems; (4) Increase fish supply; and (5) Reduce GHG emissi...

This chapter considers the food security challenge to 2030 and its implications for the sustainable development agenda. It first outlines three proposed food security targets that integrate sustainability and must be achieved by 2030: reduce the rate of food loss and waste by 50 per cent; reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from food production by...

Introduction Over the next several decades, the world faces an historic challenge and opportunity at the nexus of food security, economic development and the environment. The world needs to be food secure. The world needs agriculture to contribute to inclusive economic development, and the world needs to reduce agriculture's impact on the environme...

A protein scorecard to help consumers make more sustainable diet choices. It ranks foods from lowest (plant-based foods) to highest impact (beef, goat and lamb) based on GHG emissions from agricultural production and land use change

What you need to know (in graphics) on how diets are converging globally, how that impacts agricultural resource use and environmental impacts, what would be the impacts of shifting diets, and importantly how to shift diets.

Installment 11 of Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows that for people who consume high amounts of meat and dairy, shifting to diets with a greater share of plant-based foods could significantly reduce agriculture’s pressure on the environment. It introduces a protein scorecard ranking foods from lowest (plant-based foods) to highest impact (be...

Installment 11 of Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows that for people who consume high amounts of meat and dairy, shifting to diets with a greater share of plant-based foods could significantly reduce agriculture’s pressure on the environment. It introduces a protein scorecard ranking foods from lowest (plant-based foods) to highest impact (be...

Caribbean economies depend on coastal ecosystem services, including tourism, fisheries, and shoreline protection. However, coastal ecosystems continue to degrade due to human pressures. Many pressures arise from decisions that fail to take full range of ecosystem values and benefits into account. Economic valuation can contribute to better-informed...

Coastal ecosystems are valuable to people and economies across the Caribbean, but are threatened by human pressures. Ecosystem valuation can make the economic case for protection of coastal ecosystems, but in many cases valuation studies have had a limited impact on decision making regarding coastal resource use in the Caribbean. Drawing on the les...

Increases in fish demand in the coming decades are projected to be largely met by growth of aquaculture. However, increased aquaculture production is linked to higher demand for natural resources and energy as well as emissions to the environment. This paper explores the use of Life Cycle Assessment to improve knowledge of potential environmental i...

The world’s agricultural system faces a great balancing act. To meet different human needs, by 2050 it must simultaneously produce far more food for a population expected to reach about 9.6 billion, provide economic opportunities for the hundreds of millions of rural poor who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and reduce environmental imp...