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UN Climate Panel: the world must treat land more sustainably
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations' climate panel, warns in its report that with unchanged land use, the likelihood of global warming may be limited to the relatively safe 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Global food security will be increasingly affected by climate change. If global warming is not slowed down quickly, food shortages may arise in the second half of the century, due to declining harvests (especially in the tropics), rising food prices, declining food value of crops and disruptions in supply chains. An imminent danger is the increasing deforestation of the tropical rainforests, which are an important repository of CO2 and play a vital role in the global climate system. At least a third of climate change solutions can be achieved with better land use, the report says. Through more sustainable farming methods, with less use of fertilizers and chemicals, more careful handling of soils, protection and restoration of forests and wetlands. And of course by eating less meat and wasting less food (a third of the food worldwide is wasted). |
