Is it enough if we eat a climate-friendly diet?

The important answer right up front: Overall, no, but it’s definitely a good start. This article gives a brief overview of greenhouse gas emissions and our diet. The next paragraph is a bit heavy on numbers, but it gets better after that - promise!

In order to probably be able to meet the 1.5°C target decided at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, each person would in the long term only be allowed to cause about 1500 kg of CO₂ per year (source), other sources also assume less than one ton per capita per year. At the moment, however, per capita emissions in Germany are around 9700 kg of CO₂ per year (source). The Federal Ministry for the Environment even assumes annual emissions of 11610 kg of CO₂ per capita in Germany, of which about 15% are attributable to nutrition (source, p. 54). So even if we had no CO₂ emissions from our diet at all, that would not be enough.

However, it is comparatively easy to generate significantly fewer CO₂ emissions through a different diet: there are estimates that a comparatively small change in diet can avoid around 36% of CO₂ emissions in this area and a slightly larger change in diet would result in 49% fewer CO₂ emissions (source). This avoidance corresponds approximately to the emissions currently generated in Germany by air traffic and electricity generation.

So it is clear that it is unfortunately not enough if we only eat more climate-friendly, but otherwise do nothing against climate change. We also need further measures in other areas of life, for example better insulation of our houses and apartments. At the same time, however, it is relatively easy to experiment with a different,