A diet with too much sugar is not only harmful to people's health. It is also for the economy and the climate of the planet. In this sense, reducing their consumption would have important benefits in the fight against the climate crisis and would boost the recovery of the economy. This is the conclusion of a study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) that has been published in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability.
The authors have analyzed the possible benefits of devoting less surface to the cultivation of sugar for food uses, the main one being lower greenhouse gas emissions. They pose three scenarios. In the first, the European Union reforests the lands that it currently uses for sugar cultivation. In the second, the sugar beet produced by the community countries is converted into ethanol (a biofuel that is mixed with gasoline) instead of sugar. Finally, in the third scenario, the EU exports its surplus sugar production, while Brazil redirects its current agricultural sugar production to growing more sugar cane for ethanol. It should be noted that the vast majority of Brazilian vehicles use gasoline with 27% ethanol, while in Europe the maximum mixture is 10%. By increasing the percentage of ethanol and decreasing that of gasoline, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
Due to the health problems caused by the consumption of sugar and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it would be better for society to use sugarcane crops for ethanol production instead of sugar. King and Jeroen van den Bergh, the two researchers who authored the study. “Sugar beet is also suitable for ethanol production, but with less efficiency than sugar cane. However, sugar beet is a more efficient crop for ethanol than other typical alternatives such as corn”, add these two experts.
After analyzing the three scenarios, the researchers have concluded that "the optimum" would be the third, in which the EU focuses on the production of sugar from sugar beets and Brazil on the production of ethanol from sugar cane. "This is because sugarcane is a more efficient crop for ethanol production and would reduce the pressure on deforestation and land use change in Brazil," the authors of this study state.
Sugar cane – which grows in tropical regions – and sugar beet – which grows in temperate regions – are the two main crops for sugar production. "The two largest producers of sugarcane are, by far, Brazil and India," highlight King and Van den Bergh. In total, it is estimated that more than 31 million hectares are devoted to sugar cultivation in the world (close to three million in the EU and less than 28,000 in Spain).
To reduce production needs, they propose an approach similar to the one that has helped the EU reduce its tobacco consumption: education and policies aimed at changing habits, with an important role for taxation. Sugar taxes have proven to be effective and politically popular in countries such as the UK, making them a promising policy instrument to indirectly contribute to the achievement of climate change goals. These are applied not only on the final sugar, but also on foods or drinks that contain it.
