Agriculture vital to tackling effects of climate change

Sam Otieno in SciDev.net: Agriculture should receive more attention as climate change could affect rainfall rates and patterns, resulting in more droughts and increased catastrophic flooding that could affect food production across the world, according to experts.

At a meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) panel last month (1-11 June) in Bonn, Germany, the experts discussed the need to make agriculture more prominent in a global treaty on climate change expected to be signed in Paris, France in November-December this year.

Scientists have warned that Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable to the threat of El Nino as 95 per cent of its crop production area relies entirely on rainfall. Under climate change, this means that multiple stresses such as drought interact, causing large decreases in productivity.

The UNFCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) that marshals scientific evidence to support countries’ decisions to be included in the treaty, says that a central objective of agricultural research, extension, education and rural credit systems must be to help farmers and producers successfully adapt to changing climatic conditions.

....“It is difficult to be prescriptive on adaptation and mitigation strategies because options and needs vary largely in space and time,” said Julian Ramirez-Villegas, a, who researches in climate change impacts and adaptation at CIAT. “Something that is clear is that for most countries in Africa adaptation is a priority, but we need to understand the mitigation impacts of any implemented adaptation actions....

Climbing beans growing in the province of North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, shot by Neil Palmer (CIAT), Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Why climate talks need to focus on agriculture

Frank Rijsberman in SciDev.net: Negotiators at the Paris climate talks in December (COP 21) will focus on reaching a truly universal and legally binding agreement to drive the world’s transition towards resilient, low-carbon societies and economies. This is being talked about as humanity’s last chance to avoid truly disastrous effects for our planet — the floods in the Philippines and persistent drought  in Thailand are just two current examples of the types of events that climate change makes more likely.

In parallel, the scientific community’s focus will be on using and creating practical solutions to complex climate challenges. This week, scientists are gathering in France for a conference hosted by UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to debate evidence-based solutions.

Agricultural scientists are getting organised to increase their involvement in such climate meetings, which the energy and transport sectors often dominate.

Food systems’ high sensitivity to climate is well-known — maize production, for example, could fall by a whopping 40 per cent by the end of this century. Less widely recognised is that agriculture is also a major driver of climate change. Agrifood systems — systems involved in producing, processing and transporting food — are estimated to contribute at least a quarter of global, human-caused greenhouse emissions. It is therefore hard to imagine a successful climate treaty without agrifood systems as a central element.

Agricultural scientists at this week’s meeting will lay the groundwork for a more ‘climate smart’ agriculture, and wider recognition of soil as a carbon reservoir with a major impact on the climate system....

A plowed field in Poland, shot by Krzysztof T, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Groundwater resources draining fast, NASA data show

Timothy Cama in the Hill: Humans are depleting a large portion of the world’s groundwater resources, and they are not being naturally refilled, researchers said. The scientists at the University of California Irvine used data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellites to determine drainage of the world’s largest groundwater aquifers in recent years.

They found that a third of the 37 major aquifers were either worse off in 2013 than in 2003 or were highly stressed. “Available physical and chemical measurements are simply insufficient,” Jay Famiglietti, the principal researcher on the project, said in a Tuesday statement. Famiglietti is both a UC Irvine professor and the top water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“Given how quickly we are consuming the world’s groundwater reserves, we need a coordinated global effort to determine how much is left,” he said.

The paper was published Tuesday in the journal Water Resources Research. It is the first to use data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellite system, which detects changes in Earth’s gravity that can show groundwater levels.

It found that the most stressed aquifers were in extreme dry areas, whose residents and businesses have leaned most heavily on groundwater....

A bore well pump in India, shot by ABHIJEET, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Human security at risk as depletion of soil accelerates

Sarah Yang at the UC Berkeley News Center: Steadily and alarmingly, humans have been depleting Earth’s soil resources faster than the nutrients can be replenished. If this trajectory does not change, soil erosion, combined with the effects of climate change, will present a huge risk to global food security over the next century, warns a review paper authored by some of the top soil scientists in the country.

The paper singles out farming, which accelerates erosion and nutrient removal, as the primary game changer in soil health. “Ever since humans developed agriculture, we’ve been transforming the planet and throwing the soil’s nutrient cycle out of balance,” said the paper’s lead author, Ronald Amundson, a UC Berkeley professor of environmental science, policy and management. “Because the changes happen slowly, often taking two to three generations to be noticed, people are not cognizant of the geological transformation taking place.”

In the paper, published [May 7] in the journal Science, the authors say that soil erosion has accelerated since the industrial revolution, and we’re now entering a period when the ability of soil, “the living epidermis of the planet,” to support the growth of our food supply is plateauing. The publication comes nearly two weeks ahead of the Global Soil Security Symposium at Texas A&M University, a meeting held as part of the declaration of 2015 as the International Year of Soils by the United Nations.

The authors identify the supply of fertilizer as one of the key threats to future soil security. Farmers use three essential nutrients to fertilize their crops: nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous. The paper credits the discovery of synthetic nitrogen production in the early 1900s for significantly increasing crop yields, which in turn supported dramatic growths in global population. Because the process of synthesizing nitrogen is energy-intensive, its supply is dependent on fossil fuels.

...Another threat to soil security relates to its role as a mass reservoir for carbon. Left unperturbed, soil can hold onto its stores of carbon for hundreds to thousands of years. The most recent estimates suggest that up to 2,300 gigatons of carbon are stored in the top three meters of the Earth’s soil – more carbon than in all the world’s plants and atmosphere combined. One gigaton is equal to a billion tons.

...One proposal is to stop discarding nutrients captured in waste treatment facilities. Currently, phosphorous and potassium are concentrated into solid waste rather than cycled back into the soil. Additionally, more efficient management is needed to curtail losses from soil. Excess nitrogen, for example, is considered a pollutant, with the runoff sapping oxygen from the nation’s waterways, suffocating aquatic life and creating dead zones in coastal margins...

A South Korean combine in 1976

Can't pay? Won't pay! -- putting a price on water

Space Daily via AFP: It's arguably our most vital and precious natural resource, and one that is growing dangerously scarce from China to California, but no matter how much we value water, we're not that keen on paying for it.

The issue of pricing water is extremely sensitive -- socially, politically, economically -- but it's an issue that is being revisited with increasing frequency as warnings of a looming global crisis over water scarcity grow louder.

A recent editorial in The Economist and an op-ed piece in the New York Times -- on China's and California's chronic water shortages respectively -- both insisted that the best way forward was to raise prices.

The suggestion raises the hackles of those who feel pricing public water is tantamount to monetising nature, while others say there is simply no alternative given UN estimates that the world will face a 40 percent "global water deficit" by 2030.

"If you have an artificially low price for a product, you tend to consume more of it and tend not to give it importance," said Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)....

Photo by Juhanson, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Global water use may outstrip supply by mid-century

Space Daily: Population growth could cause global demand for water to outpace supply by mid-century if current levels of consumption continue. But it wouldn't be the first time this has happened, a Duke University study finds.

Using a delayed-feedback mathematical model that analyzes historic data to help project future trends, the researchers identified a regularly recurring pattern of global water use in recent centuries. Periods of increased demand for water - often coinciding with population growth or other major demographic and social changes - were followed by periods of rapid innovation of new water technologies that helped end or ease any shortages.

Based on this recurring pattern, the model predicts a similar period of innovation could occur in coming decades. "Researchers in other fields have previously used this model to predict earthquakes and other complex processes, including events like the boom and bust of the stock market during financial crises, but this is the first time it's been applied to water use," said Anthony Parolari, postdoctoral research associate in civil and environmental engineering at Duke, who led the new study.

"What the model shows us is that there will likely be a new phase of change in the global water supply system by the mid-21st century," Parolari said...

Chand Baori, the famous step well in Rajasthan, shot by chetan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Rise in heatwaves puts pressure on city planning

Catarina Chagas in SciDev.net: Cities around the world are likely to suffer more heatwaves in the future, a study has found, leading to greater need for planning regulation and urban cooling. The study found a significant increase between 1973 and 2012 in the number of heatwaves affecting the 217 urban areas around the world it examined.

It also found that almost two-thirds of cities saw significant rises in ‘extreme hot nights’, which are as warm as the daily minimum temperature. Such nights are dangerous as they mean people have no respite from hot days.

As climate change progresses and cities become denser, these problems could be exacerbated, say the authors of the study, which was published on 29 January in Environmental Research Letters.

Vimal Mishra, the lead author of the study and an engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, says it is particularly important to understand changes to urban climate, as around 70 per cent of the world’s population are forecast to be living in cities by 2050.

Large cities generate their own microclimates, called urban heat islands. This effect means temperatures in urban areas are higher than those in surrounding rural areas, explains Diane Archer, a researcher at policy research organisation the International Institute for Environment and Development. “This is because of the concentration of buildings trapping more heat during the day and releasing it more slowly at night than natural ground cover like vegetation,” she says....

Gokuldham in Mumbai, shot by Gaggarkartik, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Supply chain policies need work to save forests

Megan Rowling in Reuters via the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Governments, companies and investors still have significant work to do if they are to stop global supply chains causing deforestation and worsening climate change, a tropical forest think tank said on Wednesday.

A new ranking of 250 companies, 150 investors and lenders, 50 countries and regions, and 50 other powerful players showed only a small minority have comprehensive policies in place to tackle the problem.

At the current rate of progress, international goals to end deforestation will not be met, the Global Canopy Programme (GCP) warned. "Whilst some powerbrokers are leading the way in addressing global forest loss, many are failing to take the action required," it said in a report on the "Forest 500" (www.forest500.org).

Over the last decade, growing global demand for food, animal feed and fuel has been responsible for more than half of deforestation in tropical and sub-tropical regions, according to the report. Deforestation and changes in land use today cause more than 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, undermine water security and threaten the livelihoods of over 1 billion people worldwide, it added.

Progress on curbing tree losses and emissions has been made, including last year's New York Declaration on Forests, signed by businesses, governments and indigenous peoples. It aims to cut natural forest loss in half by 2020 and end it by 2030....

Diagram by Stern, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

World thunderstorm "map" key to assessing climate change

A press release from Tel Aviv University:
The Doomsday Clock, which measures the likelihood of global catastrophe, last month ticked a minute closer to "midnight" — the apocalypse. The symbolic clock was set to 11:57 by a board of atomic scientists featuring 17 Nobel Laureates, who warned that the planet, beset by climate change and nuclear proliferation, faced extraordinary and undeniable threats to its continued existence.

New research by Prof. Colin Price of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geosciences and published in Environmental Research Letters will likely be crucial to measuring the impact of climate change on thunderstorms — one of the weather occurrences most problematic for human life on the planet. The varying frequency and intensity of thunderstorms have direct repercussions for the public, agriculture, and industry.

"To date, satellites have only provided snapshots of thunderstorm incidence," said Prof. Price, whose new map of thunderstorms around the world is the first of its kind. "We want to use our algorithm to determine how climate change will affect the frequency and intensity of thunderstorms. According to climate change predictions, every one percent rise in global temperature will lead to a 10 percent increase in thunderstorm activity. This means that we could see 25 percent more lightning by the end of the century."

To draft a global thunderstorm map, Prof. Price and TAU graduate student Keren Mezuman used a vast global lightning network of 70 weather stations capable of detecting radio waves produced by lightning — the main feature of a thunderstorm — from thousands of miles away. The World Wide Lightning Location Network (http://wwlln.net) is run by atmospheric scientists at universities and research institutes around the world. The TAU team harnessed this ground-based system to cluster individual lightning flashes into "thunderstorm cells."..."When we clustered the lighting strikes into storm cells, we found that there were around 1,000 thunderstorms active at any time somewhere on the globe," said Prof. Price.

The researchers, pooling seven years of data analysis, found that every day lightning activity on earth peaked at 1900 GMT, with low activity at 0300 GMT every day. While previous studies had estimated that 90 percent of lightning flashes occurred over land areas, the TAU team found that only 50 percent of the thunderstorms cells existed over land areas, implying that land storms have much more lightning than ocean storms. "How lightning will be distributed in storms, and how the number and intensity of storms will change in the future, are questions we are working on answering," Prof. Price said.

A thunderstorm in Slovakia, shot by Eryn Blaireová, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license 

World has not woken up to water crisis caused by climate change

Nita Bhalla in Reuters via the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Water scarcity could lead to conflict between communities and nations as the world is still not fully aware of the water crisis many countries face as a result of climate change, the head of the U.N. panel of climate scientists warned on Tuesday.

The latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a rise in global temperature of between 0.3 and 4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5 to 8.6 Fahrenheit) by the late 21st century.

Countries such as India are likely to be hit hard by global warming, which will bring more freak weather such as droughts that will lead to serious water shortages and affect agricultural output and food security.

"Unfortunately, the world has not really woken up to the reality of what we are going to face in terms of the crises as far as water is concerned," IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri told participants at a conference on water security.

"If you look at agricultural products, if you look at animal protein - the demand for which is growing - that's highly water intensive. At the same time, on the supply side, there are going to be several constraints. Firstly because there are going to be profound changes in the water cycle due to climate change."...

Umia Lake in Iran, all dried up in 2012, in a spot where the water was four meters deep not so many years ago. Shot by Yoosef Pooranvary, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported 3.0 license 

Water crises seen as a top threat in next decade

Lou Del Bello in SciDev.net: Pressure on fresh water resources may be the main global threat in the next decade, but the world is failing to mitigate the risk and avoid a crisis, according to a survey of leaders from business, government, universities, international organisations and NGOs by non-profit foundation the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Published in its Global Risks 2015 report released ahead of the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week (21-24 January), the survey reveals a belief that water crises pose the greatest risk in terms of global impact. This places it ahead of hazards such as the spread of infectious diseases, the failure to adapt to climate change and interstate conflict, prompted by the rise of the Islamic State.

The WEF defines water crises as a significant decline in freshwater quality and quantity, resulting in damage to human health or economic activity or both. The report points to a study projecting that, by 2030, the global demand for water will exceed sustainable supplies by 40 per cent. Most of the world’s water supply is currently used in agriculture, according to the UN, with the World Bank predicting that food demand will rise by fifty per cent in the next two decades, as population grows and dietary habits change.

The looming shortages may be aggravated by an 85 per cent increase in water demand from the energy sector by 2035, the International Energy Agency anticipates....

Lake Vianden in the Netherlands, shot by Vincent de Groot - http://www.videgro.net, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license 

Indian anti-cyclone actions slash extreme-weather risks

Gareth Willmer at SciDev.net: Developing nations should build resilience to extreme-weather events by learning from previous disasters and introducing technology such as early warning systems, says a report by UK-based scientific academy the Royal Society.  

As an example, the researchers highlight Cyclone Phailin, which hit the east Indian state of Odisha in October 2013. It was the area’s strongest storm since Cyclone 05B struck in 1999, killing almost 9,000 people and leaving more than 1.5 million homeless. Yet just 44 people were killed in Odisha by the 2013 cyclone and related flash floods.  

While last year’s storm still caused significant destruction, the researchers say the vastly reduced human cost shows “the effectiveness of building resilience through preparedness, early warnings, political commitment and technology”. They highlight how Odisha has pumped major investment this millennium into early-warning systems, infrastructure improvements, evacuation planning and shelters.  

And such measures could be key in coming years as developing nations face a “significant and increasing” risk from extreme weather due to their growing populations and climate change, they say. Maps in the report illustrate that the impact of floods, heatwaves and droughts will grow in many areas worldwide, but the risk will be amplified in regions such as South Asia, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa because of their patterns of population rise and urbanisation....

NASA image of Cyclone Phailin, October 11, 2013

Green Climate Fund hits $10 billion goal, after Australia surprise

Alister Doyle and Megan Rowling at Trust.org via Reuters: A new Green Climate Fund that aims to help poor nations cope with global warming reached a U.N. goal of $10 billion on Tuesday at global climate talks in Lima, helped by a surprise donation from Australia.

Several of the 190 nations at the meeting welcomed the cash from both Australia and Belgium, but China said rich countries were not working fast enough to meet a broader goal of providing $100 billion a year by 2020 from public and private sources to help the poor cope. "We've got above one of the psychologically important milestones of more than $10 billion," Hela Cheikhrouhou, head of the Fund, told Reuters. Pledges by 24 nations now total $10.14 billion, she said.

Environment ministers are meeting in Lima from Dec. 1-12 to work on elements of a draft deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Finance is a key part of the deal, due to be agreed in Paris in late 2015, to help developing nations take part. Australia, which faced criticisms by developing nations after it did not make a pledge at a donors' meeting last month, pledged A$200 million ($166 million) and Belgium 51.6 million euros ($64 million)....

Image by Svilen.milev, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licens

New global disaster reduction strategy must include vulnerable people

Jessica Hartog at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Last week, international experts on disaster reduction met in Geneva to develop a new global framework to make the world more resilient to increasing natural disasters.

It is clear that disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons and floods are on the rise and have huge impacts. The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) estimates that in the last 20 years, 1.3 million people have been killed by disasters. Of these deaths, 93 percent were in developing countries, highlighting how the poor are disproportionately vulnerable to disasters.

But there is more to the story than mortality rates. In the last 20 years, around 4.4 billion people have been affected in some way or another by disasters.

For people whose assets have been damaged or destroyed, farmers whose harvests have been lost, or communities whose road infrastructure has been damaged - cutting them off from their work, schools and markets -  economic losses are thought to have totalled $2 trillion in the same period.

It is expected that disasters will only continue to increase if we do not take measures to stop this trend. Major drivers are climate change and the growth of cities in areas that are already exposed to floods, tropical storms and earthquakes. This is why an internationally agreed disaster risk reduction strategy is so important....

From the 2010 flooding in Thailand, shot by Napast3379, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license 

Climate fund receives $9.3 billion pledge

BBC: Thirty nations meeting in Berlin have pledged $9.3bn (£6bn) for a fund to help developing countries cut emissions and prepare for climate change. The Green Climate Fund was to have held at least $10bn by the end of 2014, so the pledge is just shy of the target.

The South Korea-based fund aims to help nations invest in clean energy and green technology. It is also designed to help them build up defences against rising seas and worsening storms, floods and droughts.

Rich nations previously vowed that by 2020, developing countries would get $100bn (£64bn) a year from such a fund. The US had already pledged $3bn and Japan $1.5bn. The UK, Germany and France have promised about $1bn each, and Sweden more than $500m million.

Smaller amounts were offered by countries including Switzerland, South Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic. After co-hosting the donors' conference, German Environment Minister Gerd Mueller hailed the achievement, saying humanity must fight climate change so "it doesn't go the way of the dinosaurs"....

A 2004 flood in Dhaka, shot by Raiyan Kamal, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 2.5 license 

Adaptation, mitigation activities can control climate change – IPCC report

EcoSeed: Climate change irreversible impacts to increase, however, there are options to adapt to climate change and stringent mitigation activities to manage it, finds new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The Synthesis Report, which sums and integrates the findings of the I.P.C.C. Fifth Assessment Report produced by 800 scientists..., is the most comprehensive assessment of climate change.

“Our assessment finds that the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, sea level has risen and the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased to a level unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years,” said Thomas Stocker, co-chair of I.P.C.C. Working Group I.

The document reports with great certainty than in previous assessment the fact that emissions of greenhouse gases and other man-made drivers have been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.

According to the report, the more human activity disrupts the climate, the greater the risks. Continued GHG emissions will further warm and create long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of widespread and profound impacts affecting all levels of society.

“Adaptation can play a key role in decreasing these risks. Adaptation is so important because it can be integrated with the pursuit of development, and can help prepare for the risks to which we are already committed by past emissions and existing infrastructure,” said Vicente Barros, co-chair of I.P.C.C. Working Group II.

But adaptation alone is not enough. Substantial and sustained reductions of GHG emissions are at the core of limiting the risks of climate change, as it will not only reduce the rate and magnitude of warming, but also increase the time available for adaptation....

New UN report warns of ‘devastating’ effects from ongoing destruction of mangrove forests

UN News Centre: The world is losing its mangroves at a faster rate than global deforestation, the United Nations revealed today, adding that the destruction of the coastal habitats was costing billions in economic damages and impacting millions of lives.

In a new report launched today at the 16th Global Meeting of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans, held in Athens, Greece, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that the deforestation of the planet’s mangroves was exceeding average global forest loss by a rate of three to five times, resulting in economic damages of up to $42 billion annually and exposing ecosystems and coastal habitats to an increased risk of devastation from climate change.

“The escalating destruction and degradation of mangroves – driven by land conversion for aquaculture and agriculture, coastal development, and pollution – is occurring at an alarming rate, with over a quarter of the earth’s original mangrove cover now lost,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“This has potentially devastating effects on biodiversity, food security and the livelihoods of some of the most marginalized coastal communities in developing countries, where more than 90 per cent of the world’s mangroves are found,” he added.

The Executive Director noted that mangroves – which are found in 123 countries around the world – provide ecosystem services worth up to $57,000 per hectare per year, storing carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and providing the over 100 million people who live in their vicinity with a variety of goods and services such as fisheries and forest products, clean water and protection against erosion and extreme weather events....

A mangrove forest in Brazil, Shot by Ulf Mehlig, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 2.5 license

Resilience planning – some do’s and don’ts

IRIN: Among the topics being discussed at the 2014 World Climate Week in New York City (22-26 September), are financing resilient cities, corporate actions for resilience, the ways data can support resilience moves, and women’s leadership in resilience planning.

IRIN looks at some of the successes, failures and pitfalls in resilience planning. Hazard-resilient investments can range from enforced building codes, to early warning systems, to community-level waste management - all crucial for buffering societies against disasters.

“It can be as easy as painting lines on trees to gauge water levels [so] you can see when it is time to pack up and leave, before it is too late,” Richard Yates, the director of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) regional mission for Asia, told IRIN, pointing to a USAID-supported project in the Philippines.

But resilience planning which does not include a range of actors - from vulnerable communities to big companies - can fail to accomplish anything new, warned a critique by the Humanitarian Policy Group at the London-based Overseas Development
Institute (ODI).

“There is a danger that we go on and think we are building resilience when really we are ignoring the most vulnerable,” said Paul Levine, a livelihoods and vulnerability specialist with ODI. “In coming up with a whole new language and framework, we forget the basics.”...

2012 flood damage in Manila, shot by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

More land, fewer harvests

A press release from Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich): According to a simulation of the impact of climate change on agricultural production over the course of the 21st century, carried out by researchers led by Professor Wolfram Mauser at LMU’s Department of Geography, some two-thirds of all land potentially suitable for agricultural use is already under cultivation. The study indicates that climate change will expand the supply of cropland in the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere (Canada, Russia, China) over the next 100 years. However, in the absence of adaptation measures such as increased irrigation, the simulation projects a significant loss of suitable agricultural land in Mediterranean regions and in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of the study appear in the online journal PLOS ONE.

Ecological factors such as climate, soil quality, water supply and topography determine the suitability of land for agriculture. In the new study the LMU team focused on the probable impact of climate change on the supply of land suitable for the cultivation of the 16 major food and energy crops worldwide, including staples such as maize, rice, soybeans and wheat. “Based on the environmental requirements for growth of these plants, in terms of climate, soil and terrain, one can determine whether or not a given location on Earth provides conditions required by specific crops,” says Dr. Florian Zabel, one of the authors of the new study.

...“In the context of current projections, which predict that the demand for food will double by the year 2050 as the result of population increase, our results are quite alarming. In addition, one must consider the prospect of increased pressure on land resources for the cultivation of forage crops and animal feed owing to rising demand for meat, and the expansion of land use for the production of bioenergy,” says Zabel….

This map summarizes the projected impact of climate change on the worldwide distribution of land suitable for agriculture in the year 2100. While new cropland is predicted to become available in the Northern hemisphere(green), conditions are expected to deteriorate in other areas, including the Mediterranean region (brown). (Source: Dr. Florian Zabel, LMU)

Dwindling chances to stay below 2°C warming

AlphaGalileo via the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo: Carbon dioxide emissions continue to track the high end of emission scenarios, eroding the chances to keep global warming below 2°C, and placing increased pressure on world leaders ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit on the 23rd September.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production grew 2.3 per cent to a record high of 36.1 billion tonnes CO2 in 2013. In 2014 emissions are set to increase a further 2.5%, 65 per cent above the level of 1990.

In its annual analysis of trends in global carbon dioxide emissions, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) published three peer-reviewed articles identifying the challenges for society to keep global average warming less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

The top-four emitters of CO2 have a critical role in global emissions growth:

• Chinese emissions grew at 4.2%, due to slower economic growth and faster improvements in carbon intensity of the economy compared to the previous decade
• USA emissions increased 2.9%, due to a rebound in coal consumption potentially reversing the downward trend since the start of the shale-gas boom in 2007
• Indian emissions grew at 5.1%, due to robust economic growth and a continued increase in the carbon intensity of the economy
• EU28 emissions decreased 1.8%, due to a weak economy and emission decreases in some countries offsetting a return to coal led by Poland, Germany, Finland

“China now emits more than the US and EU combined and has CO2 emissions per person 45% higher than the global average, exceeding even the EU average”, said Robbie Andrew, a co-author of the studies based at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO) in Norway.

“China continues to reshape the global distribution of emissions, and as politics impedes significant progress in the US and other key countries, observers increasingly look to China to provide a breakthrough in climate negotiations”, said Glen Peters, another CICERO-based co-author....

A coal bike in China, shot by Brian Kelley, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license