Climate Economics with Arvid Viaene
This podcast aims to raise the level of conversation around climate change by bringing data and economics to the forefront. As an economist, I focus on quantifying everything — from emissions and their impacts to the costs and trade-offs of climate policies. Episodes will be either expert interviews or solo explorations of key issues.
Hosted by Dr. Arvid Viaene, a climate economist with a PhD from the University of Chicago. His research on climate-related mortality has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and he has advised the European Commission on the impacts of climate policy on firm competitiveness.
Climate Economics with Arvid Viaene
#1 Dr. Koen Deconinck - Measuring Farm Emissions: The Fast, the Furious, and the Fixable
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Koen Deconinck, economist and policy analyst at the OECD, to explore a deeply technical but increasingly important piece of the climate puzzle: how we measure greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector.
Direct and indirect emissions in Agriculture are responsible for up to 30% of global man-made emissions, yet it's often left out of the climate conversation. Why? Because measuring these emissions accurately is really hard. Dr. Deconinck walks us through the fascinating and complex world of emissions data—from cows burping methane to fertilizer releasing nitrous oxide—and why product-level averages are not sufficient.
We dive into:
- Why farm-level variation in emissions matters way more than most people realize
- The challenges (and importance) of moving beyond averages to granular, farm-specific data
- The rapid rise of tools, databases, and labeling schemes—and the chaos that comes with them
- How programs like Origin Green in Ireland succeeded in gathering farm-level data at scale
- The two biggest gaps: harmonizing reporting standards and improving farm-level tools
- Why getting the measurement right is critical—not just for better policies, but also for businesses and consumers who want to make more sustainable choices
Koen also shares behind-the-scenes insights from his work on the OECD report “Measuring Carbon Footprints of Agri-Food Products: Eight Building Blocks” and why the pace of development in this field has become—yes—fast and furious.
🔗 Link to the report:
Measuring Carbon Footprints of Agri-Food Products
🔬 Also cited:
Poore & Nemecek (2018) – Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaq0216
If you’re interested in climate policy, sustainable food systems, or just curious about what it really means when we talk about a product’s "carbon footprint"—this one’s for you.
Thanks for listening,
— Arvid
#agriculture #emissions #carbonfootprint #sustainability #foodsystems #OECD #KoenDeconinck #farmdata #reportingstandards #climatepolicy #greenwashing #OriginGreen #methane #FastAndFurious #climateeconomics
For questions, comments or suggestions, you can contact me at arvid.viaene.ce@gmail.com