'Yearly food waste reaches 2.5bn tonnes, contributes 10% to climate change'

A new report has revealed that a whopping 2.5 billion tonnes of food is wasted each year, contributing to 10 per cent of all greenhouse gases released annually in the atmosphere, including CO2.

The report, titled 'Figures of Driven to Waste', was released jointly by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the British retailing giant Tesco on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The first-of-its-kind report since 2011, indicated that 40 per cent of all food is not consumed and emits twice more greenhouse gases than all cars that are driven in Europe and North America.

Among the food wasted each year, 1.2 billion tonnes are lost during farming.

"We have known for years that food loss and waste is a huge problem that can be minimized," said Pete Pearson, Global Food Loss and Waste Initiative Lead for the WWF.

"This report shows us the problem is likely bigger than we had thought."

Other results proved to be surprising, as the report indicates that industrialised countries - among them those in Europe and North America - contribute 58 per cent of all squandered food.

Lilly Da Gama, Waste Programme Manager at WWF-UK and one of the authors of the reports, urged that governments and private actors "must take action to support farmers across the world and commit to halving food waste".

"Current policies are not ambitious enough," she added.