<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/12/global-heating-likely-to-hit-world-food-supply-faster-than-expected-says-united-nations-desertification-expert>
"The world is likely to face major disruption to food supplies well before
temperatures rise by the 1.5C target, the president of the UN’s desertification
conference has warned, as the impacts of the climate crisis combine with water
scarcity and poor farming practices to threaten global agriculture.
Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defence minister who led last
year’s UN Cop15 summit on desertification, said the effects of drought were
taking hold more rapidly than expected.
“Climate change is a pandemic that we need to fight quickly. See how fast the
degradation of the climate is going – I think it’s going even faster than we
predicted,” he said. “Everyone is fixated on 1.5C [above pre-industrial
levels], and it’s a very important target. But actually, some very bad things
could happen, in terms of soil degradation, water scarcity and desertification,
way before 1.5C.”
The problems of rising temperatures, heatwaves and more intense droughts and
floods, were endangering food security in many regions, Donwahi said. “[Look
at] the effects of droughts on food security, the effects of droughts on
migration of population, the effect of droughts on inflation. We could have an
acceleration of negative effects, other than temperature,” he said.
Poor farming practices were not helping, he said. “The degradation of soil
comes with bad habits, and the way we do our agriculture will lead to
degradation of the soil. When the soil is affected, the yield is affected,” he
said."
Via Khurram Wadee and Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
