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Frequent extreme weather hits the global food system |
■ Zhang Shuai
Since this summer, the world has experienced frequent extreme weather, Iran, Afghanistan and other countries have suffered droughts, North America has continued heat waves since June, Western Europe has experienced extreme floods in July, and wildfires in many European countries such as Greece and Italy have raged since August.
.
.
According to the United Nations in August.
The latest climate report shows that unless global carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced in the next few decades, global warming will exceed 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, reaching the internationally agreed dangerous value of temperature rise
.
The global climate crisis is becoming more and more severe and has a negative impact on the international community.
The most serious of these is the food security problem caused by climate change
extreme
According to the latest forecast of world cereal production released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the forecast for July was slightly lowered from June to 2.
817 billion tons.
The main reason was the continued dry weather
.
Among them, the forecast of corn production in Brazil has been revised downwards, the production of wheat in the Near East has been reduced, and the impact of restricted irrigation water in Spain on the cropping industry has exceeded expectations, leading to a reduction in the EU's forecast of rice production
.
Agriculture is a "sensitive and fragile" industry, and any changes in nature will affect agricultural production, which makes climate security and food security in the "same security body"
.
Specifically, the impact of climate change on food security is mainly manifested in three aspects
.
First of all, at the level of food supply, frequent extreme weather has led to a reduction in food production and reduced the amount of food circulating on the international market
.
Global warming has caused frequent droughts, which not only leads to an increasing shortage of agricultural irrigation water, but also reduces the water content of the soil layer due to the accelerated evaporation of water and destroys soil fertility
.
Extreme extreme
On the other hand, climate change has caused an imbalance in the agricultural ecosystem, which can easily induce secondary crises such as pests
.
For example, the locust plague caused by drought in 2019-2020 severely damaged food production in East Africa, West Asia, South Asia and other regions.
Among them, more than one million hectares of land in East Africa were infested by locusts, and some crops in Pakistan, India and other countries were damaged
Second, at the level of food access, climate change has weakened the economic foundation of vulnerable groups such as farmers and women, leading to a decline in their food purchasing power
.
To judge whether a country’s food is safe or not, it’s not enough to look at the supply side alone, and we need to pay attention to the acquisition side
.
Third, at the level of food use, the increase in carbon dioxide concentration and the destruction of water quality lead to a decline in the quality of crops and damage to nutrients in the food, thereby weakening the body's absorption capacity
.
Secondary disasters caused by climate change will also bring pathogens into the fields and induce food-borne diseases
.
The report "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021" jointly released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development and other United Nations agencies last month identified climate change as one of the important factors inducing the global food crisis.
, Believes that the frequent occurrence of climate disasters has increased the difficulty for the international community to achieve the goal of “zero hunger” by 2030
.
At present, state and non-state actors should strengthen collaboration to enhance the resilience of the global food system in response to natural disasters
.
(The author is a lecturer at the School of Government Management, Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, and a postdoctoral fellow at China Pudong Leadership Academy)