Looming Global Food Supply Threats Due To Climate Change, Researcher Warns
March 29, 2022
A climate change scientist warns that the world could see a shortage of food supply due to the impacts of climate change. The detrimental effects of climate change could sooner, rather than later, cause poorer crop yields and dampen food production around the world, according to a leading NASA researcher.
Jonas Jagermeyr and his team of researchers published a study on the impacts of climate change on global food supply in the journal Environmental Research Letters back in 2016. He has recently warned that we could soon see as much as 20% lesser corn crop yields around the world within the next few years. He says that there will be a compounding effect on global food production, when there are multiple climate hazards such as heatwaves, droughts and floods combine and affect crop yields. The wheat production in China is damp and other parts of the world has similarly poor production as well.
The IPCC climate report released last year warned that global food supply could be affected negatively unless global heating could be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report added that the negative effects on crops such as maize, rice and wheat will be less damaging at 1.5 degrees Celsius than at 2.0 degrees Celsius, after thousands of scientific papers were reviewed.
The director of campaigns and policy at Oxfam, Matthew Spencer, said last year that climate change is burning our planet and millions of people around the world are feeling the negative impacts. He added that the IPCC is certain that there will be no recourse if there is no immediate intervention to curb greenhouse gas emissions. He expressed that lives and livelihoods would be saved if governments could phase out coal and adopt renewable energy. Lastly, he ominously warned that island nations would disappear amidst the rising sea levels and there is already a massive displacement and hunger issues going on around the world.