The Global Methane Hub’s Waste & Circular Economy Program Director, Carolina Urmenta, recently joined Jason Woods from the Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) on the Food For Change podcast to discuss why cutting methane emissions is critical for not just fighting climate change, but for improving our food systems.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Carolina explains why cutting methane is a critical aspect of reducing global temperature in the short term. She highlights how food loss and waste drives methane emissions in landfills and shares how prevention of waste and food recovery systems, like food banks and donation centers, can deliver rapid climate and community benefits.
“Methane is such a big deal, because it is a short-life climate pollutant,” Carolina said. “That means it lasts around 12 years in the atmosphere, which is very different from what we have with CO2, which lasts around 100 years. And the global warming potential [during] the lifetime of methane is 86 times more than CO2.”
During the conversation, Carolina also discusses the Food Recovery to Avoid Methane Emissions methodology (FRAME), a new methodology developed with GFN to measure the methane reduction impact of food banks and inform policy, investment and climate action. FRAME provides a standardized and scalable way to measure the climate impact of food recovery, helping food banks strengthen efficiency, influence policy, and attract investment.
“We need data to make decisions. As soon as you have that, you can start really good discussions with decision-makers on how to promote food donation [and align on] what is needed. Those are the types of discussions that we are promoting because of this [FRAME] methodology and because of the new and improved data that is available now.”