Broad advice to cut back on high-emissions foods like red meat and shift toward more plant-based foods may not work equally well across demographic groups, according to two recently published global studies.

The studies show how dietary emissions vary with age, education level, income and geography and suggest that efforts to cut them may need to account for these differences. By tailoring interventions to specific communities, researchers say policymakers can cut emissions and also support healthier diets.

It’s already well established that the diets of people in high-income countries have a far heavier toll on the climate than those in low-income countries. Two new studies in Nature Food further detailed how dietary emissions vary substantially across demographic groups worldwide.

The researchers recommend targeted approaches such as behavioral nudges — for example, changing default offerings for children and young adults — as well as programs that help low-income communities access healthy, lower-emission foods.

One study by researchers from China, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands found that adolescents and young adults generate the highest per capita dietary emissions in most regions. This pattern stemmed from different dietary patterns depending on location: in high-income countries, for example, it was primarily associated with consuming more sugary foods and beverages. Meanwhile, in India and China, it came from young people eating more meat and dairy than other groups.

But seniors account for an increasing share of total dietary emissions, particularly in high-income countries such as the United States, Japan and those in Western Europe. This is not because their diets are more emissions-intensive, but because as more people live longer, the fraction of the population who are seniors keeps increasing, the authors note.

A second study led by researchers from Leiden University, the University of Oxford and the Vienna University of Economics and Business found that highly educated urban men aged 15 to 34 have the largest dietary environmental footprint. This supports earlier research showing that men tend to have more carbon-intensive diets. Meanwhile, rural women aged 35 to 54 with lower levels of education have the lowest dietary environmental footprint.

Read the full article about food emissions by Gaea Cabico at Sentient Media.