Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-5 (section)

==== 5.12.4.1 Food availability and access ====

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Climate change will have negative effects on food security and nutrition in 2050 ( ''high agreement'' , ''medium evidence'' ) ( [[#Amjath-Babu--2016|Amjath-Babu et al., 2016]] ; [[#Springmann--2016|Springmann et al., 2016]] ; [[#Lloyd--2018|Lloyd et al., 2018]] ; [[#Richardson--2018|Richardson et al., 2018]] ; see Chapter 7; [[#Hasegawa--2021a|Hasegawa et al., 2021a]] ). How many people are affected will depend considerably on non-climatic drivers of food security ( [[#van%20Dijk--2021|van Dijk et al., 2021]] ), but modelling studies agreed that climate change would increase the risk of food insecurity. For example, one study comparing an RCP8.5 scenario with one that has zero climate impacts estimates 65 million additional people (10% increase) will experience food insecurity due to climate change impacts in 2050 (modelling results in [[#Nelson--2018|Nelson et al., 2018]] ). Another study accounting for climate extreme events estimates that, by 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger will increase by 20% and 11% under high- and low-emission scenarios, respectively, owing to a once-per-100-year extreme climate event ( [[#Hasegawa--2021a|Hasegawa et al., 2021a]] ). Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in this study were projected to be at the greatest risk, with triple the amount of South Asia’s current food reserves needed to offset such an extreme event. Models suggest that food security and malnutrition impacts will be much more severe from 2050 onwards relative to pre-2050, but the scale and extent of the impacts will strongly depend on the GHG emission scenario ( [[#FAO--2018a|FAO, 2018a]] ; [[#Richardson--2018|Richardson et al., 2018]] ). Due to CIDs and non-climate drivers of food insecurity, Sub Saharan Africa is projected to be the hardest hit, followed by South Asia and Central and South America, but contingent on adaptation level ( [[#Richardson--2018|Richardson et al., 2018]] ; [[#Hasegawa--2021a|Hasegawa et al., 2021a]] ).

Without adaptive measures, heat stress impacts on agricultural labour will increase with climate change ( ''high confidence'' ) ( [[#Im--2017|Im et al., 2017]] ; [[#Levy--2019|Levy and Roelofs, 2019]] ; [[#Hertel--2020|Hertel and de Lima, 2020]] ). Climate-change-related heat stress will reduce outdoor physical work capacity on a global scale. Depending on GHG concentrations, some regions will experience losses of 200–250 outdoor workdays per year at century’s end. Using results from one study reporting experimental procedures to assess loss of work capacity ( [[#Foster--2021|Foster et al., 2021]] ), regions hardest hit in an SSP5-8.5 scenario include much of South Asia, tropical Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Central and South America (Figure 5.18). [[#de%20Lima--2021|de Lima et al. (2021)]] projected that negative impacts of warming on crop yields and labour capacity would affect crop production and cost for workers and labour-saving mechanisation, raising food price by 5% at +3° from the baseline period (1986–2005) globally, with significant implications for vulnerable regions (sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia). Large uncertainties, however, exist around population diversity and adaptive capacity ( [[#Vanos--2019|Vanos et al., 2019]] ). Agricultural labour productivity impacts of heat attributed to climate change are expected to be worse in low- and middle-income countries ( [[#Kjellstrom--2016|Kjellstrom et al., 2016]] ). Adaptation options needed to protect agricultural worker productivity outdoors and reduce occupational heat illnesses and deaths include cooled working environments, improved surveillance systems and education on the need to monitor ( ''high confidence'' ) ( [[#Xiang--2016|Xiang et al., 2016]] ; [[#Quiller--2017|Quiller et al., 2017]] ; [[#Flouris--2018|Flouris et al., 2018]] ; [[#Day--2019|Day et al., 2019]] ; [[#Vanos--2019|Vanos et al., 2019]] ). Currently available options, however, are more difficult to achieve in lower-income economies ( [[#Kjellstrom--2016|Kjellstrom et al., 2016]] ; [[#Im--2017|Im et al., 2017]] ).

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[[File:c5f97e3d249455b4f00acfd5f50fead7 IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_5_018.png]]

'''Figure 5.18 |''' '''The number of days per year where physical work capacity (PWC) is less than 60% based on average daily air temperature and relative humidity (Foster et al.''' ''', 2021).''' PWC is defined as the maximum physical work output that can be reasonably expected from an individual performing moderate-to-heavy work in a ‘cool’ reference environment of 15°C. Values plotted are from the early (A) and end of century (B) for SSP5-8.5 using ensemble means from the ISI-MIP CMIP6 data set. See SM5.4 for details.

Under higher-emission scenarios, food availability will be further reduced after 2050, due to the potential for widespread crop failure and decline in livestock and fisheries stocks ( [[#Mbow--2014|Mbow et al., 2014]] ; [[#Kelley--2017|Kelley et al., 2017]] ; [[#Challinor--2018|Challinor et al., 2018]] ; [[#Hendrix--2018|Hendrix, 2018]] ; [[#Bindoff--2019|Bindoff et al., 2019]] ). At +3°C from the preindustrial era, all food production sectors will experience greater, and pronounced, losses due to climate change compared with +1.5°C or +2°C (see Sections 5.2, 5.4.3, 5.8.3 and 5.9.3).

Food insecurity from food price spikes due to reduced agricultural production associated with climate impact drivers such as drought can lead to both domestic and international conflict, including political instability ( [[#Abbott--2017|Abbott et al., 2017]] ; [[#Bush--2017|Bush and Martiniello, 2017]] ; [[#WEF--2017|WEF, 2017]] ; [[#D’Odorico--2018|D’Odorico et al., 2018]] ; [[#de%20Amorim--2018|de Amorim et al., 2018]] ;Chapter 7.2.7). While climate change impacts, including drought impacts on food security, are important risk factors for conflict, other key drivers are often more influential, including low socioeconomic development, limited state capacity, weak governance, intergroup inequities and recent histories of conflict ( ''medium confidence'' ) ( [[#Mach--2019|Mach et al., 2019]] ; [[#Selby--2019|Selby, 2019]] ; Chapter 7.2.7). The interaction between extreme weather events, conflict and human migration may increase vulnerability of particular communities of low-income countries ( [[#WEF--2017|WEF, 2017]] ; [[#D’Odorico--2018|D’Odorico et al., 2018]] ; [[#de%20Amorim--2018|de Amorim et al., 2018]] ; Chapter 7). Further research is needed to better understand how increased drought risk under future climate change might affect food prices and water availability ( [[#Abbott--2017|Abbott et al., 2017]] ).

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