World Has Three Years Left to Stop Dangerous Climate Change, Warn Experts

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Author: Fiona Harvey  | Published: June 28, 2017 

Avoiding dangerous levels of climate change is still just about possible, but will require unprecedented effort and coordination from governments, businesses, citizens and scientists in the next three years, a group of prominent experts has warned.

Warnings over global warming have picked up pace in recent months, even as the political environment has grown chilly with Donald Trump’s formal announcement of the US’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement. This year’s weather has beaten high temperature records in some regions, and 2014, 2015 and 2016 were the hottest years on record.

But while temperatures have risen, global carbon dioxide emissions have stayed broadly flat for the past three years. This gives hope that the worst effects of climate change – devastating droughts, floods, heatwaves and irreversible sea level rises – may be avoided, according to a letter published in the journal Nature this week.

The authors, including former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argue that the next three years will be crucial. They calculate that if emissions can be brought permanently lower by 2020 then the temperature thresholds leading to runaway irreversible climate change will not be breached.

Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, under whom the Paris agreement was signed, said: “We stand at the doorway of being able to bend the emissions curve downwards by 2020, as science demands, in protection of the UN sustainable development goals, and in particular the eradication of extreme poverty. This monumental challenge coincides with an unprecedented openness to self-challenge on the part of sub-national governments inside the US, governments at all levels outside the US, and of the private sector in general. The opportunity given to us over the next three years is unique in history.”

Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, added: “The maths is brutally clear: while the world can’t be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence [before] 2020.”

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Our Land. Our Home. Our Future

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Author: Monique Barbut | Published: June 17, 2017 

We all have dreams. For most of us, those dreams are often quite simple. They are common to individuals and communities all around the world. People just want a place to settle down and to plan for a future where their families don’t just survive but thrive.  For far too many people in far too many places, such simple dreams are disappearing into thin air.

This is particularly the case in rural areas where populations are suffering from the effects of land degradation.  Population growth means demand for food and for water is set to double by 2050 but crop yields are projected to fall precipitously on drought affected, degraded land.

More than 1.3 billion people, mostly in the rural areas of developing countries, are in this situation.  No matter how hard they work, their land no longer provides them either sustenance or economic opportunity. They are missing out on the opportunity to benefit from increasing global demand and wider sustained economic growth. In fact, the economic losses they suffer and growing inequalities they perceive means many people feel they are being left behind.

They look for a route out.  Migration is well trodden path.  People have always migrated, on a temporary basis, to survive when times are tough. The ambitious often chose to move for a better job and a brighter future.

One in every five youth, aged 15-24 years, for example is willing to migrate to another country. Youth in poorer countries are even more willing to migrate for a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. It is becoming clear though that the element of hope and choice in migration is increasingly missing.  Once, migration was temporary or ambitious. Now, it is often permanent and distressed.

Over the next few decades, worldwide, close to 135 million people are at risk of being permanently displaced by desertification and land degradation.  If they don’t migrate, the young and unemployed are also at more risk of falling victim to extremist groups that exploit and recruit the disillusioned and vulnerable.

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21 Innovative Regeneration Projects

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In November 2016, Regeneration International (RI) embarked on a journey in search of the world’s most inspiring, innovative projects working on regenerative agriculture, land use, or other solution-oriented concepts involving regeneration. To do this, we launched a micro-grants competition, Five Innovations for Regeneration, and the results were astounding. We received over 200 applications from 60 countries. It was difficult to do, but the “Five Innovations for Regeneration” micro-grants competition has selected five finalists and highlighted 16 honorable mentions.

Get inspired—Check out these 21 Innovative Regeneration Projects! Better yet—Sign up to RHub to engage with the projects!

Read the press release 

5 Innovations for Regeneration (Finalists)

Acacias for All | Tunisia

Acacias for All is halting desertification caused by climate change in Tunisia by planting green walls of acacia trees in collaboration with local rural populations. The project has 14 ambassadors in 13 regions of Tunisia and recently launched the “1 Million Trees for Tunisia” challenge.

Agua Santa Regeneration | Ecuador

Agua Santa Regeneration regenerates the mountain ecosystems of their ancestral Andean lands through afforestation and reforestation with native species, and with the capture and propagation of beneficial microorganisms to improve soil fertility. They provide trainings for campesino families on the importance of reforestation, conservation of natural resources, and returning to indigenous agroecological farming methods. They support community livelihoods by providing fruit trees, medicinal plants and Andean grains for family gardens. For Agua Santa Regeneration, the regeneration of soils and water goes hand in hand with regeneration of culture and ancestral knowledge.

Grow a Farmer | Uganda

Grow a Farmer combines information communication technology, permaculture and value added business into a single ‘three-dimensional model’ that is empowering a critical mass of small-scale farmers to regenerate ecosystems and build self-sustaining communities. Since 2008, they’ve worked with over 360 farmers groups and aim to train 150,000 farmers every year for the next 4 years. The farmers they work with grow coffee, fruit, corn and bananas. The project is supporting farmer to farmer learning, innovation and skill transfer, creating long-lasting impact and empowering small scale farmers to move their communities forward.

 

SOIL | Haiti

Photo Credit: Melissa Schilling for SOIL Haiti

SOIL is developing transformative social business models for the sustainable provision of urban household sanitation and waste treatment services in Haiti. SOIL’s EkoLakay social business collects and transports waste from locally made ecological toilets to a SOIL composting facility where the waste is safely treated and transformed into rich, organic compost using a process that respects World Health Organization standards. Revenues from toilet user fees and compost sales support ongoing project costs and showcase the potential to affordably and sustainably provide household sanitation in the world’s most vulnerable urban communities. Additionally, the compost produced restores soil fertility and supports reforestation.

TH Climate Park | Myanmar

In partnership with Dr. Arne Fjortoft, Secretary General of Worldview International Foundation Dr. Bremley Lyngdoh, Founder & CEO of Worldview Impact Foundation has been working to restore and regenerate the degraded mangrove ecosystems at the 750 ha Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park in the Delta Region of Myanmar to protect the lives of highly vulnerable communities. The park was created in honor of the well-known Norwegian author, scientist, environmentalist and explorer Thor Heyerdahl. Since 2012 when the project started 2.7 million mangrove trees have been planted Dr. Lyngdoh is now working with BioCarbon Engineering with a mission to plant 1 billion trees in 250,000 ha by deploying tree-planting drones and securing the resilience of the project through the creation of a blockchain structured Ecosystem Services marketplace powered by Route2.

16 Honorable Mentions

Allin Mikuy Ayllu | Peru

Allin Mikuy Ayllu is the only food consumer collective in Lima, Peru. They promote sustainable and regenerative livelihoods based on principles of food sovereignty and the solidarity economy through organizing a fair trade monthly food box scheme connecting agroecological farmers with consumers. Their goal is to strengthen relations between urban consumers and agroecological farmers for responsible consumption and sustainability. Since 2012 they have produced 35 boxes, which included 60-120 sustainable products, involving dozens of producers and hundreds of consumers. They are a part of The Urban Agriculture Platform of Lima (PAUL) and the Council of Sustainable Settlements of Latin America (CASA).

American Chestnut Land Trust: Double Oak Farms | USA

The American Chestnut Land Trust is a non-profit organization working towards a sustainable future through stewardship of the environment. A major component of the trust is Double Oak Farms. This agriculture supporting the community (ASC) operation enhances and educates the community in innovative and holistic agricultural techniques while donating 80 percent of all produce to a local food pantry. Each year the project has donated roughly 4000 lbs of produce, while the remainder goes to dedicated volunteers who log over 2000 hours each year. On approxmately 3000 acres of pristine preserved property, this operation models low impact production for the community to replicate.

CarbonToSoil | Finland

Climate change is a real threat. The total amount of carbon on Earth is constant but currently in the wrong from: as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. CarbonToSoil is a nonprofit project that enables anyone to help reverse climate change by adjusting current agricultural methods in order to draw carbon back into the soil. The solution: In-app purchases enable anyone to support real farms to change their agricultural methods to regenerative farming. The app also allows users to personally support food production and see how food is grown. The proceeds raised through the app are used to regenerate more land, research, education and scaling the project globally. Why just reduce climate change when we can reverse it?

Danyadara Permaculture | Spain

“Danyadara” is a simplification of two sanskrit words, “dhanya” and “dhara,” which together mean Blessed Earth. Danyadara is a not-for-profit permaculture project focused on land regeneration. They are reversing desertification in Andalucia, Spain through sustainable agriculture techniques, creating a legacy that will inspire the region for years to come. To date, over 1,000 trees have been planted on 24 Hectares, including 700 Centenary Oliver trees for production. They also host two to four permaculture courses per year.

Durga’s Den | Jamaica

Durga’s Den is a project on the North Coast of Jamaica where self-reliance and regenerative agriculture techniques are demonstrated. In partnership with the hotel industry, they are getting organic input used to feed systems such as vermicomposting, composting and animal feeding. The demo farm trains the community members wanting to participate in the regenerative practices through workshops and work exchanges. There is also a strong reforestation component through the use of agroforestry techniques.

Fresh Organic Farming | Uganda

YICEUganda is a startup social enterprise that provides rural smallholder farmers in Uganda with flexible farm loans, inputs and training services to reduce hunger and poverty. With a network of loc al farm agents, YICEUganda facilitates farmers’ access to bundled agricultural services at various levels of the farming value chain, including seed sourcing and access to farm loans. Since 2016, YICEUganda has implemented the Fresh Organic Farming Project that seeks to nurture a network of 5,000 environmentally conscious farmers to protect and conserve the environment by 2020. This comes from their desire to achieve sustainable farming for all rural smallholder farmers, ensure increased incomes and food security. The project offers three key organic services that include: organic farming trainings, production of organic fertilizers, and establishment of organic demonstration gardens.

Gaia Education | United Kingdom

Gaia Education envisions a world where communities have harmonised their social, economic and natural systems, so that they thrive within bioregional and planetary boundaries, regenerating their environment and allowing diverse human potential and all life to flourish. Gaia Education contributes to this vision by providing leading-edge online and face-to-face ‘Design for Sustainability’ programmes using their Whole Systems Design Framework. Their long-term Project Based Learning Programmes assist fragile communities to replace petrochemical agriculture with regenerative food systems, focused on well-being and resilience. They help over-consuming communities reduce their ecological and carbon footprints, whilst strengthening their regional economy and revitalizing their community.

Greening the Desert | Mexico

Pasticultores del Desierto follows nature’s way to keep their desert grasslands beautiful and healthy while making a living off the land. Nature’s way is to use a diversity of living organisms such bison and pronghorn as a herd and move on, leaving a trace of fertility while allowing land to rest. As ranchers, the team mimics the migratory patterns of large wild herbivores using cattle, water points and fence. This enables them to restore bare, unproductive land into productive, native grasslands. To date, they’ve done it on more than 200,000 hectares in the Chihuahuan desert, in northern Mexico, and are working to get up to one million hectares by 2030.

Irish Biochar Coop | Ireland

The Biochar Coop sells a kiln that burns cleanly to make a certified agricultural charcoal from waste biomass. Their SilageChar and FeedChar can increase yields, improve animal health and regenerate soils and are aimed at organic dairy and beef farmers. They also transform invasive species and scrub into a soil amendment and pollution adsorber to protect waterbodies.

Their products can help meet Irish agriculture targets to increase dairy by 50 percent without increasing GHG if used by 50 percent of Irish dairy and beef farmers in their slurry tanks and silage. And that’s just counting the GHG offsets of the carbon in the biochar. Research shows that biochar has an even greater GHG reduction effects in tank, rumen and soil over the whole milk production cycle.

Olio | United Kingdom

OLIO is a free app tackling the problem of food waste by connecting people with their neighbours and with local shops & cafes so that surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. Users snap a picture of their items and add them to OLIO; neighbours receive customised alerts and can request anything that takes their fancy. Pick-up takes place, often the same day, at the home, store, or another agreed location. Launched in January 2016 OLIO has over 185,000 users who have together shared 225,000 items of food—equivalent to almost 100,000 meals.

Paradise Farm | Sri Lanka

Paradise Farm was created when Dr. Arne Fjortoft, Secretary General of Worldview International Foundation pioneered organic agriculture in 1996 by taking over a neglected farm and turning it into a demonstration project. The farm now holds more than 800 different plants species as part of its biodiversity strategy with value added production of organic green tea, organic virgin coconut oil, fruits and spices, all classified as highly beneficial to health. Dr. Bremley Lyngdoh, Founder & CEO of Worldview Impact Foundation later created the Green Goodness project to train students at Richmond Park Academy in the UK to rebrand and sell the organic green tea that was sourced directly from the women of Paradise Farm in Sri Lanka and promote Equal Trade.

Shanao Cacoa Collective | Peru

Shanao Cacoa Collective aims to create sustainable jobs in agroecology, which integrate community based-conservation and public health systems throughout the Alto Mayo Valley of Peru. To achieve this mission, Shanao Cacao works hand in hand with farmers to implement a regenerative village hub for growing and processing organic, native superfoods, including sacha inchi, and cacao.

The Soft Foot Alliance | Zimbabwe

The Soft Foot Alliance is dedicated to improving the lives and landscapes of the people living on the boundary of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National  Park. They are a husband and wife team and along with their son they try to “walk the talk,” living in a self built natural homestead, finding simple solutions for people and wildlife to coexist. They regenerate degraded landscapes by offering sustainable alternatives to environmentally harmful practices through permaculture, holistic management and sweat.

Soil Carbon Coalition | USA

Soil Carbon Coalition’s learning materials about soil-health and watershed-function and their open-source monitoring/mapping platform are aimed at creating a generation of farmers, policy makers, scientists & citizens who can: think in systems; see and track how soil health is impacting public health, flooding, drought, erosion, climate, biodiversity, & food and water security; understand the power of photosynthesis, soil biology & land management to improve local & global conditions; and engage that power as they create healthy communities around them. Soil Carbon Coalition is collaborating with the USDA-Climate Hubs, 4-H, the Future Farmers of America (FFA), schools, and other community and farming groups.

RegenSoil Project | United Kingdom

Since 2015, the International Year of Soil, Glyn Mitchell of the Credible Food Project has been working with farmers to build soil microbe levels to reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers used to poison and strip carbon from soils in the Jersey Channel Islands (famous for the Jersey Cow). With more and more carbon smart biotic farmers realizing the advantages of farming soil microbes first, crops second, soil becomes healthier, plants benefit from a better balanced microbial biomass surrounding their crops rhizosphere so carbon trading for minerals and nutrients between plants and microbes can take place. As long as regenerative practices continue, farmers soon discover it is easier and cheaper to work with the microbes than against them. Earlier this year, RegenSoil Project had already trained 20 people in 2 months, and so far no one has returned to using chemicals.

Witnessing Trees | Philippines

Witnessing Trees by Green Releaf tells the story of how grassroots and community leadership are developing resilience in climate and conflict vulnerable areas through regenerative solutions for food security, livelihood and ecosystem restoration in the Philippines. Their hope is to reclaim spaces as sacred for collective healing through ecovillage and permaculture solutions. It was inspired by a tree at the COP21 in Paris where the landmark climate agreement to end the fossil fuel era was drafted. Trees symbolize hope in terms of carbon capture and as source of food, shelter, safety and even refuge during and after disasters.

Rebecca Burgess and Fibershed

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Author: Susan Clotfelter  | Published: May 6, 2016

In 2010, Burgess decided to spend an entire year wearing only apparel that had been produced within 150 miles of her home in Northern California. “I think of [Fibershed] as a framework, an open door,” Burgess says. “You’re invited to make relationships with farmers and ranchers and dyers and spinners, and learn things about compassion and care, and become of your place.” In California, the last cotton mill was closed in the 1990s, and the wool industry (including the milling sector) had shrunk considerably.

Burgess is the author of Harvesting Color, a book on botanical dyes. She has also spent time studying textile production in Southeast Asia, so she possessed a clear vision of her ultimate, if far-off goal. “I had physical, real-time experience working in small communities where people were growing dye plants, growing their fibers, and growing their food in multigenerational families and trading those textiles to get goods they couldn’t produce themselves,” she says. She had also examined urban textile production, where workers were housed in dormitories, separated from family and tradition. “They were structurally isolated and displaced from the land base, because there’s work in the city. There are multiple reasons why people move to the city, but the one that people talk about is jobs.”

Burgess noticed the intangible price textile workers were paying for those jobs. “I saw a lot of people who were not very happy,” she recalls. “There was such a contrast. In the textile villages, people were physically healthier, there was less crime, the elderly were taken care of, the children taken care of. There were multigenerational families centered around a strategic land base. And you start to realize that in the West, we’ve become so disconnected from production cycles, from how our consumption is impacting communities.”

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A Climate Change Solution Beneath Our Feet

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Author: UC Davis | Published: May 17, 2017 

When we think of climate change solutions, what typically comes to mind is the transportation we use, the lights in our home, the buildings we power and the food we eat. Rarely do we think about the ground beneath our feet.

Kate Scow thinks a lot about the ground, or, more precisely, the soil. She’s been digging into the science of how healthy soils can not only create productive farmlands, but also store carbon in the ground, where it belongs, rather than in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Looking across the landscape on a spring day at Russell Ranch Sustainable Agricultural Facility, most people would simply see a flat, mostly barren field. But Scow—a microbial ecologist and director of this experimental farm at the University of California, Davis—sees a living being brimming with potential. The soil beneath this field doesn’t just hold living things—it is itself alive.

Scow likens soil to the human body with its own system of “organs” working together for its overall health. And, like us, it needs good food, water and care to live up to its full potential.

Solutions beneath our feet

Farmers and gardeners have long sung the praises of soil. For the rest of us, it’s practically invisible. But a greater awareness of soil’s ability to sequester carbon and act as a defense against climate change is earning new attention and admiration for a resource most of us treat like dirt.

Soil can potentially store between 1.5 and 5.5 billion tons of carbon a year globally. That’s equivalent to between 5 and 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide. While significant, that’s still just a fraction of the 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted every year from burning fossil fuels.

Soil is just one of many solutions needed to confront climate change.

But the nice thing about healthy soils, Scow said, is that creating them not only helps fight climate change—it also brings multiple benefits for agricultural, human and environmental health.

“With soil, there’s so much going on that is so close to us, that’s so interesting and multifaceted, that affects our lives in so many ways—and it’s just lying there beneath our feet,” she said.

Subterranean secrets 

Underground, an invisible ecosystem of bugs, or microorganisms, awaits. In fact, there are more microbes in one teaspoon of soil than there are humans on Earth. Many of them lie dormant, just waiting to be properly fed and watered.

A well-fed army of microbes can go to work strengthening the soil so it can grow more food, hold more water, break down pollutants, prevent erosion and, yes, sequester carbon.

“I love the word ‘sequestration,’” said Scow, who thinks the word is reminiscent of secrecy, tombs and encryption. “Soil is filled with microbes who are waiting it out. The conditions may not be right for them—it’s too dry or too wet, or they don’t have the right things to eat. They’re sequestered. They’re entombed. But if the right conditions come, they will emerge. They will bloom, and they will flourish.”

KEEP READING ON THE WASHINGTON POST 

How Ancient Crops Could Counteract Climate Change Effects

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Author: Steve Gillman| Published: May 2, 2017

Intensively growing single crops for commercial purposes is the most common farming practice in Europe. These so-called cash crops include corn and wheat and they depend on stable weather to get a good harvest.

‘With climate change we will see much more drought in different places of the world, especially in the Mediterranean region, and large parts of Africa,’ said Professor Sven-Erik Jacobsen from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. ‘Even in north Europe we will see more drought and heavier rainfalls.’

An unusually hot or wet period could devastate harvests of traditional crops, but species originating in warmer climates could serve as a solution to European farmers under threat.

‘These crops could be the answer to the climate change effects that we will experience more and more,’ said Prof. Jacobsen, who is the project coordinator of PROTEIN2FOOD, an EU-funded project that’s exploring ancient crops and legumes to help make modern agriculture more sustainable.

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Fighting Climate Change on the Farm

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Author: Kevin Ma | Published on: April 26, 2017

U of A scientists will study new ways to stop climate change this summer at a farm just north of St. Albert with the help of a federal grant.

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay announced $3.7 million in grants for researchers at the University of Alberta last Friday. The grants are part of the federal Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program and are meant to create practices and technologies farmers can use to reduce carbon emissions.

“Farmers have a key role to play in feeding the world and saving the planet,” MacAulay said, and have already taken significant steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with wheat and beef production.

Agriculture accounts for about 10 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, reports Environment Canada – equivalent to the annual emissions of about 7.7 million homes or 21.2 coal power plants for a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates.

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Want Healthier Soil? Link It to Crop Insurance

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Author: Elizabeth Grossman | Published on: May 2, 2017

Most farmers know that the health of their soil is important, but they don’t all prioritize it over, say, maximizing what they grow each year. Now, some scientists are looking into ways to ensure that more farmers—especially those producing commodity crops in the middle of the country—start taking soil seriously.

The world’s biggest crop insurance program, the U.S. Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) provides coverage to help farmers recover from “severe weather and bad years of production.” But recently, a pair of Cornell University scientists looked at what might happen if crop insurance were also tied to soil quality—that is, if insurance companies began considering soil data when determining rates.

In a new paper, Cornell University assistant professor of agricultural business and finance Joshua Woodard and post-doctoral research assistant Leslie Verteramo Chiu argue that tying the Crop Insurance Program to the health of a farm’s soil could make it a powerful tool for promoting more sustainable and resilient farming. Including soil data in crop insurance criteria, they write, would “open the door to improving conservation outcomes” and help farmers better manage risks to food security and from climate change.

Or, as Paul Wolfe, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) senior policy specialist, explained, “The big picture is that crop insurance could be a great way to incentivize conservation, but it isn’t now.”

KEEP READING ON CIVIL EATS

Soil Organic Carbon: The Hidden Potential

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Published: March 21, 2017 

Warning of “colossal” negative impacts for the environment and human societies if the massive stores of carbon trapped in the Earth’s soils are released, Fijian president Jioji Konousi Konrote called for stronger management of this critical natural resource at the start of an international symposium today.

There is currently more carbon locked up in just the first meter of the planet’s soils than can be found in the atmosphere and all terrestrial plant life combined, he said during his keynote address to the Global Symposium on Soil Organic Carbon (21-23 March).

Referring to international commitments to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius made under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, Konrote warned: “If we fail to maintain our soils as a carbon reservoir, I am afraid that these discussions and negotiations would have been in vain.”

“We cannot afford to neglect a resource that could be our serious and viable ally against climate change,” he added.

Fiji and other small island developing states are on the front lines in the battle against climate change. The government of Fiji is poised to assume the presidency of the next Conference of Parties of the UN Climate Agreement that will take place in in Bonn, Germany, in November.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva in his remarks stressed that beyond their critical role as a carbon sink, healthy soils underpin multiple environmental processes upon which humankind depends and which are the foundation of global food security.

KEEP READING ON RELIEF WEB 

Climate Change Is Transforming the World’s Food Supply

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Author: Sara G. Miller | Published: February 16, 2017 

Climate change is poised to affect the world’s food supply in three key ways, experts say.

“There will be impacts on the quantity, quality and location of the food we produce,” said Dr. Sam Myers, a medical doctor and senior research scientist studying environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“We’ve never needed to increase food production more rapidly than we do today to keep up with global demand,” Myers told Live Science.

But, “at the very same time, we’re fundamentally transforming the biological underpinnings” of how we produce food, he said. [The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted]

Researchers studying climate change are looking at how the biological and physical changes happening on Earth due to climate change will transform food production, Myers said at a talk today (Feb. 16), here at the Climate & Health Meeting, a gathering of experts from public health organizations, universities and advocacy groups that focused on the health impacts of climate change.

Food quantity

Ultimately, climate change will reduce the amount of food grown around the world, Myers told Live Science.

Initially, some experts thought that rising carbon dioxide levels might act as a fertilizer and increase food yield, Myers said. However, more recent research suggests that the net effects of climate change will mean a decrease in food yield, he said.

For example, studies have shown that the combination of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, rising temperatures and changes to precipitation may result in significantly lower yields for staple crops such as corn and wheat, particularly in tropical areas, where food production is normally high, Myers said.

Areas that experience increasing temperatures due to climate change will also likely see an increase in crop pests, Myers said. Currently, pests are responsible for 25 to 40 percent of all crop loss, he said, and as climate change continues, these pests will be able to expand their reach. [7 Insects You’ll Be Eating in the Future]

Insects may move into areas where they weren’t found previously and where plants haven’t evolved defenses to ward them off, Myers said. It’s also possible that certain predators of crop pests, such as birds, may shift the timing of their migrations because of climate change in ways that could prevent them from keeping pest populations in check, he added.

Location

The location of much of the world’s agriculture will also change in ways that affect the global food supply, Myers said.

Agriculture in tropical regions will likely be the hardest hit by climate change, he said. And higher global temperatures will make it more difficult for farmers to work in the heat of the day, leading to less food production, he added. Indeed, existing research already shows that heat limits work at certain times of day depending on the season in certain tropical and subtropical areas, he said.

Other food sources, such as fish, will decrease in quantity, Myers said in his talk. And, as the ocean warms, fish move toward Earth’s poles, he said.

The problem with food production decreasing near the equator, he noted, is that almost all of the human population growth that’s predicted for the next 50 years will occur in the tropics, Myers said.

And although regions closer to the poles will experience warmer weather and longer growing seasons as a result of climate change, these changes won’t be large enough to make up for the loss of food production in the tropics, Myers said.

KEEP READING ON LIVE SCIENCE