Climate change driving the food crisis

The food crisis is being created by a perfect storm of forces, from scarcities of water, good land, energy, nutrients, technology, fish and, significantly, stable climates to population growth, consumer demand and protectionist trade policies.

Add to that unstable climates. A new study by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security has found that rising temperatures will affect crops across South-East Asia, Africa, China and Latin America.

Will governments act? It's unlikely. Professor Martin Parry, a visiting professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, who co-chaired one of the working groups in the IPCC's last climate assessment has told the BBC that while these sorts of reports are a step in the right direction, they don't make a good link between climate patterns and the impact on yields. That, he says, would make it difficult for governments to plan.

Regardless of that, it's clear that global warming will be contributing to a famine unless there is government action. And with the world population set to hit nine billion by 2050, the food pressures will increase massively. What we're seeing now is just the beginning, it's going to get worse.

At the moment, governments around the world are talking about global action to tackle climate change. The same will be needed for the food crisis.


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