Two years ago, I moved to Minnesota to sell hazelnuts. I believed strongly in their potential to fight climate change, and I was overcome with excitement – getting tongue tied talking about what it could mean to swap the endless corn and soy fields for a food with seemingly endless environmental benefits.
But I soon noticed that the attributes of hazelnuts that dazzled me enough to quit my job and move across the country were not the same attributes I was looking for when planning menus and filling up my shopping cart.
I would purchase foods based on indicators that sustainable farming practices had been used (organic, regenerative, local, etc.), but overlook the inherent qualities of the specific foods themselves. My hopes in writing this list are (1) that you too will be dazzled by the wonders of Midwest hazelnuts, and (2) that you will seek out the foods in your region that possess these underappreciated qualities. Afterall, these are the foods that will keep farms resilient and communities fed as the world changes around us.
Without further ado, three questions to help you identify oft-overlooked signs that a food is climate-friendly:
- Is it native?
While locally-grown food receives considerable attention for its sustainability, the “localness” of a food has just as much to do with the history of generations passed.
“A great opportunity lies in the consumption of … native flora adapted to the particular place we inhabit. These indigenous foods are knit into the ecology of a place, supporting the vitality of the soil, water, and wild plant and wildlife communities, as well as human needs.”
– Jared Rosenbaum, Botanist and author of Wild Plant Culture
The American hazelnut (Corylus americana) has grown wild in the forests and oak savannas of the Midwest since the melting of the glaciers. They have been tested by centuries of harsh winters, hot summers, heavy storms, dry periods, pests and diseases. They survived, and stand today ready to handle the variability of Midwestern weather conditions.
This resilience becomes even more important as the climate continues to change. Last summer, the Midwest was hit by a record drought. We feared the hazelnuts would suffer, but we ended the year with a record harvest.
Resilience in our food system is not the only environmental benefit of adding native foods to our farms and diets. If you reach into a hazelnut bush during harvest time, you’ll quickly find bird nests, caterpillars, treefrogs, and other native species that built homes on farmed hazelnut bushes just as they would in the wild. When we eat native foods, farms become habitat.
Lastly, native foods need very few human-supplied inputs to thrive. Afterall, they were meant to grow in a region’s natural conditions. Hazelnut farmers can expect a successful harvest without adding fertilizers or pesticides. Remember last summer’s drought I mentioned? Most hazelnut growers didn’t water their hazelnut bushes once.
Native foods like Midwest hazelnuts provide greater climate resilience, create habitat for native flora and fauna, and require fewer inputs to thrive.
Find native foods to your area! Check out the cookbooks, recipes, and restaurants from Indigenous chefs and food sovereignty organizations in your area. Peruse a foraging book and earmark native plants that are grown commercially. Visit your local farmers market and chat with farmers about why they grow what they grow.
- Is it a tree (or bush)?
This one may seem obvious, but I scarcely see orchards get the credit they deserve for their environmental benefits. Your average apple tree is sequestering a lot more carbon than your broccoli. Trees play a crucial role in mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it long term in the soil and in their woody biomass. Foods that are grown on trees, such as fruits and nuts, contribute to this process.
Hazelnut tidbit: Every few years, hazelnut production will slow and the bushes will be “coppiced”. Coppicing is the practice of cutting the bush down above the roots. The branches grow back quickly in a couple of years, efficiently sucking up carbon in all that new biomass, and reigniting the productivity of the bush.
Not all orchards are created equal. Take an average California almond farm, for example. Almonds are notorious for their massive water consumption, and farms have been known to sink into the ground by several inches due to the immense groundwater extraction. Furthermore, a sustainable orchard ought to have an understory. If the soil below is bare, it is vulnerable to the elements and limited in its carbon storage capacity.
- Is it perennial?
This is a big one.
If you already determined that a food came from a tree, you’ve got a yes here as well.
Perennial crops are foods that return each year without needing to be replanted. Why does this make them climate-friendly? Because the soil stays undisturbed for years at a time.
Picture an apple orchard (or hazelnut orchard) at harvest time. The trees and their roots stay intact as people or machines pick off the food. The next year, the tree blooms again.
Now picture a field of corn. Each year, the plows dig up all the roots from last year to plant anew, and all the carbon that was sequestered during that corn’s short life is released back into the atmosphere.
Some perennial crops may surprise you. Kernza is a newly developed perennial grain that is becoming a climate-smart substitute for wheat. Asparagus, rhubarb, and artichokes are all perennial vegetables.
The cookbook Perennial Kitchen by Beth Dooley is a wonderful way to explore perennials in your kitchen.
Thank you so much for reading! If you’re interested in bringing some of these dazzling Midwest hazelnuts into your kitchen, I hope you will check us out at American Hazelnut Company! Use the code CLIMATE10 at checkout for 10% off all online orders.
Emma Dempsey is the Sales and Marketing manager at the American Hazelnut Company, a farmer-owned start-up committing to building a climate-smart hazelnut industry in the Midwest.
Connect with American Hazelnut Company on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook!
The post 3 overlooked signs a food is climate friendly (Lessons from hazelnuts) appeared first on Climate Generation.
3 overlooked signs a food is climate friendly (Lessons from hazelnuts)
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
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Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
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Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that, while these are important governance measures, their existence does not necessarily demonstrate that the underlying risk of forest carbon loss has been reduced.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence of actual risk reduction and assumptions about the effectiveness of policy commitments,” she added.
Moving target
A UN source told Climate Home News that, under the approved formula, improved cookstove projects must set aside at least 9% of credits linked to saved wood if they operate in the lowest-risk areas and the host country can claim all available discounts. The share of credits rises significantly in regions with high natural risk values, such as Guyana, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste, or that do not have REDD+ programmes.
These factors could change in the future as the Supervisory Body asked its technical experts to recommend revisiting the risk values “should credible new evidence arise”.
Climate change is likely to make forest destruction events, such as wildfires or hurricanes, more frequent and more severe in certain regions. Meanwhile, national policies on forest protection can shift significantly depending on government changes.
Johnstone said the UN carbon market needs periodic reassessment to respond to new evidence showing that previously assumed levels of risk were too low.
“The integrity of credits is not guaranteed simply because a reversal risk tool exists,” she added. “The real test will be whether the mechanism provides equivalent atmospheric protection over time, rather than simply introducing another layer of accounting requirements”.
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UN carbon market forces cookstove projects to protect against forest loss