Climate Change Report

According to the 5^th assessment report published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), governments around the world must increase the amount of zero and low carbon energy from renewables and bioenergy three-fold by 2050.  To avoid ‘severe, widespread and irreversible‘ impacts, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions need to fall by 40-70% compared to 2010 levels within the next 35 years.  Agriculture, forestry and land use accounts for 24% of GHG emissions worldwide so is under pressure to make some changes.

Not only does agriculture have a massive impact on GHG emissions but will also be severely affected if nothing is done.  The report states that with increasing food demand and if global temperature increased by around 4°C there would be large risks to food security both globally and regionally.  Although some areas would see crop yields increase this would be offset by the regions seeing crop yields fall.  With warming comes the increased risk of extreme weather including heatwaves, heavy rain and flooding all of which would have a severe impact on global food production. The full report can be found at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/.