World food crisis looms if carbon emissions go unchecked, UN says

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/ipcc-un-food-security/?fbclid=IwAR1qsWgLPM1GuIlEblhLgNcCk0f6hHxpoCnIBt9bBwA8LgGoWdrMMgaH7Zs

By Stephen Leahy
Aug. 8, 2019

The impacts of climate change on land are already severe and will substantially increase food prices, risking widespread food instability, says a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The Special Report on Climate Change and Land warned that a food crisis looms, especially in tropical and sub-tropical regions, if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions go unchecked. Rising temperatures may also reduce the nutritional value of crops and will significantly reduce crop yields, the report said.

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Crop yields and animal growth rates are already falling. Nutrition levels are also expected to decline with continued CO2 emissions, putting already poor countries at very severe risk of increased hunger and malnutrition, she said.

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“We have to protect the quality of the entire landscape where food is produced,” says Louis Verchot of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and a lead author of the special report.

That means preventing further degradation of soils, water, insect life, or any element of the biosphere from farm field to consumers’ tables, Verchot said.

Agriculture and global food systems need to be reformed because they are a big part of the climate problem, producing about one-third of total carbon emissions, said Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University.

However, they can be part of the solution. More efficient, sustainable forms of food production can reduce emissions, freeing up land that can be used to store carbon in soils and vegetation like trees, said Howden, a vice chairman of an IPCC working group.

“Reductions in food loss and waste, currently estimated to be 25-30 percent of the global food produced, could have similar benefits,” he says in an email.

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Protecting the world’s remaining forests as quickly as possible is a definite no-brainer, according to Charlotte Streck, head of climate think-tank Climate Focus. Streck says the sharp increases in meat consumption in China and Asia pose a threat to forests and the climate. Eating less meat is healthier, and since over 60 percent of agricultural land is used for meat production, cutting meat consumption would free up a lot of land for reforestation, she said.

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Richer nations need cut their own carbon emissions to zero before 2050 and provide massive funding to developing countries to protect their forests.

“Governments face hard choices now because they’ve been negligent for 30 years,” he said. “This is only way left to get to close to 1.5 C.”

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