August 8th, 2019
A circular,
exacerbating relationship between land degradation and climate change is
threatening global food supplies, the United Nations said today.
It was one of many
findings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report
on Climate Change and Land approved by the world’s leaders on Wednesday
in Geneva.
When land is degraded,
the report states, it becomes less productive, limiting what can be grown and
restricting soil’s capacity to absorb carbon. This creates a cyclical
relationship between degraded land and climate change.
The report stresses
that climate change is affecting “all four pillars” of food security, namely
availability, access, utilization and stability.
“We will see different
effects in different countries, but there will be more drastic impacts on
low-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean,” IPPC
scientist Priyadarshi Shukla said.
At the moment,
according to IPCC scientist Jim Skea, agriculture, forestry and other types of
land use account for 23 per cent of human emissions.
“Land already in use
could feed the world in a changing climate and provide biomass for renewable
energy, but early, far-reaching action across several areas is required,” IPCC
scientist Hans-Otto Portner said.
Sustainable land
management, fellow IPCC scientist Kiyoto Tanabe added, would protect
communities from detrimental impacts of soil erosion and landslides that will
occur as a result of more intense rainfall in the future.
Another solution the
report presented was an increase in balanced diets “featuring plant-based foods
such as coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables and animal-sourced food
produced sustainably in low greenhouse gas emissions systems”, IPCC scientist
Debra Roberts found.
The report
publication, Emeritus professor at NUI Maynooth John Sweeney told The Green
News, represents an acknowledgement that climate change “can only be halted
if we also make radical changes in how we use land”.
“Last year the world
lost an area of rainforest equivalent to the size of Belgium. We now know we
face a biodiversity crisis as well as a climate crisis…. The world’s future
population cannot be supported on a meat-based diet such as we have in
Ireland,” Prof Sweeney said.
And while the report does not suggest vegetarianism or veganism as such, it “does indicate that we in the developed countries, in particular, should consider reducing consumption of meat-based foods and emphasise more plant-based foods if climate targets are to be met,” Prof Sweeney added.
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