World warned to change now or endanger food and climate: UN
- Swift and sweeping changes to how we use the land we live off are needed if humanity wants to avoid painful trade-offs between food and climate change
- Any measure taken to stave off climate disaster while shoring up food supply cannot be taken without ‘rapid reductions’ in emissions, the report says
Humanity faces increasingly painful trade-offs between food security and rising temperatures within decades unless it curbs emissions and stops unsustainable farming and deforestation, a landmark climate assessment said on Thursday.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that efforts to limit global warming while feeding a booming population could be wrecked without swift and sweeping changes to how we use the land we live off.
But in a stark warning to those who may hope that vast reforestation and biofuel schemes alone can offset mankind’s environmental damage, the report cautioned that these mega-projects could endanger food security, underlining that reducing emissions will be central to averting disaster.
“This is a perfect storm. Limited land, an expanding human population, and all wrapped in a suffocating blanket of climate emergency,” said Dave Reay, Professor of Carbon Management at the University of Edinburgh.