Climate Change and Your Food: Ten Facts

GLOBAL - Here are ten facts about how a change climate affects our ability to grow food and feed ourselves.
calendar icon 31 December 2015
clock icon 3 minute read

1. 75 per cent of the world's poor and food insecure people rely on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods.

2. FAO estimates that world food production must rise 60 per cent to keep pace with demographic change. Climate change puts this at risk.

3. According to IPPC, crop yield declines of 10-25 per cent may be widespread by 2050 due to climate change.

4. Rising temperatures are predicted to reduce catches of the world's main fish species by 40 per cent.

5. Although global emissions from deforestation have dropped, deforestation and forest degradation account for 10-11 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions from forest degradation (logging and fires ) increased from 0.4 to 1.0 gt CO2 per year between 1990 and 2015.

6. Livestock contributes nearly 2/3 of agriculture's greenhouse and 78 per cent of its methane emissions.

7. Climate change can transfer risks of food-borne diseases from one region to another, threatening public health in new ways.

8. FAO estimates that the potential to reduce emissions from livestock production (especially methane) is about 30 per cent of baseline emissions.

9. Currently, one third of the food we produce is either lost or wasted. The global costs of food wastage is around $2.6 trillion/yr, including $700 billion of environmental costs and $900 billion of social costs.

10. Global food loss and waste generate about 8 per cent of humankind's annual greenhouse gas emissions.

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