Vi har ikke fattet omfanget af klimaforandringernes betydning for prisen på mad, mener Oxfam-forskere. Konsekvenserne bliver størst for verdens fattige.
Vi kan forvente, at prisen for eksempelvis majs er i fare for at stige til det dobbelte i løbet af de næste to årtier, fremgår det af en pressemeddelelse fra den britiske NGO, Oxfam, onsdag.
LONDON, 5th September, 2012: So here is your ultra-depressing news of the day: a new Oxfam report indicates that we are considerably underestimating the impact climate change will have on the world’s poor.
Rising temperatures and extreme weather will cause food shocks that will hit the most vulnerable populations even harder than previously projected, the study says.
Climate change is making extreme weather – like droughts, floods and heat waves – much more likely. As the 2012 drought in the US shows, extreme weather means extreme food prices. Mankinds failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions presents a future of greater food price volatility, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people in poverty.
This is pretty well-accepted stuff. A globally-warmed world means that it is going to become a lot harder for farmers to grow crops in many regions, and that extreme weather events (which will occur with increasing frequency) stand to wipe them out more often.
Fødevarepriser i fare for fordobling
Scientists have been warning about these ills for over a decade now, but Oxfam says we have not fully grasped just just how bad it is going to be.
The report claims that “the average price of staple foods such as maize could more than double in the next 20 years compared with 2010 trend prices,” primarily because of climate change. Price shocks on that scale would mean millions of starving people – it is that simple.
Læs videre på
http://www.treehugger.com/economics/climate-change-will-starve-poor-even-more-previously-thought.html
Begynd fra: “Beyond that, “more frequent and extreme…”
