Letter to the editor: Food vs. climate change

The COP28 climate summit just concluded in Dubai. The summit’s president, Sultan al-Jaber, was widely criticized last week for denigrating the science behind eliminating fossil fuels. He’s wrong in this, of course, but his statements recall a reality we are not talking about enough: namely food for the Earth’s large and growing population.

The human population explosion of the last century was made possible, in large part, by the burning of fossil fuels. And this comes down to food production. Fossil-fuel derived fertilizers increased crop yields two to five times over the past century. Farm machinery powered by fossil fuels created labor efficiencies impossible through human and/or animal-based labor. How do we feed the Earth’s population without fossil fuels?

This is a critical question. Consider ammonia production, for example. Ammonia is an essential ingredient of modern fertilizers. The most efficient process for making it, known as the Haber-Bosch process, merges nitrogen and hydrogen gases at high temperatures and pressures to create ammonia. A fossil fuel, natural gas, provides the energy for this process. It has been estimated that the fertilizer to feed 80% of the Earth’s population comes from this process.

While I disagree with Sultan al-Jaber’s misreading of fuel science, I see value in asking what role fossil fuels will have for sustaining the Earth’s population moving forward. Our need for these will not abate until we have diverse alternatives that address all our core needs. Meeting our food needs without fossil fuels is arguably our biggest challenge.

Tom Meuser
Portland