I was researching the food security—climate link a couple of years ago for German policy-makers. Two findings stood out:
1. While climate has an effect on agricultural productivity, the effects of increasing yields and a decreasing rate of population growth will very likely lead to a less food-insecure future in terms of global food supply (in line with Halstead’s comment).
2. Obviously, this does not mean that climate change will not lead to famines in some places, but this will not be an issue of global insufficiency, but of unequal vulnerability and access.
I am very worried about the destabilizing effects of climate change because of mechanisms related to 2 and other indirect effects—the risk for civil strife, political instability, migration, knock-on effects etc.
But it seems very unlikely that climate change will cause a collapse of the global food system constituting a global catastrophe as a direct effect.
I would agree with that—climate change seems like it could have very bad humanitarian costs for poor agrarian societies that look set to experience low economic growth this century. I do though find it very difficult to see how it could lead to a collapse of the global food system
I was researching the food security—climate link a couple of years ago for German policy-makers. Two findings stood out:
1. While climate has an effect on agricultural productivity, the effects of increasing yields and a decreasing rate of population growth will very likely lead to a less food-insecure future in terms of global food supply (in line with Halstead’s comment).
2. Obviously, this does not mean that climate change will not lead to famines in some places, but this will not be an issue of global insufficiency, but of unequal vulnerability and access.
I am very worried about the destabilizing effects of climate change because of mechanisms related to 2 and other indirect effects—the risk for civil strife, political instability, migration, knock-on effects etc.
But it seems very unlikely that climate change will cause a collapse of the global food system constituting a global catastrophe as a direct effect.
I would agree with that—climate change seems like it could have very bad humanitarian costs for poor agrarian societies that look set to experience low economic growth this century. I do though find it very difficult to see how it could lead to a collapse of the global food system