by Charlotte Evans – 

Have you ever considered the negative impacts of offsetting climate change? Food security is a global issue that could be worsened through mitigation processes and it is something that 2 billion people currently suffer from [1]. Climate change and food security are both major global problems and both are linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals [2], so we need to carefully consider how we deal with these problems. J Doelman et al (2019) is a journal article that explores the negative impacts of mitigation on food security [3].

Land based mitigation

Although there are many methods of mitigation being developed, we are going to focus on afforestation and biomass energy with carbon-capture storage (BECCS), to outline how mitigation might negatively impact food security. Afforestation is the process of planting more trees to increase carbon dioxide uptake, as trees are natural carbon sinks. BECCS is the process of growing crops to use as a biofuel, where the carbon dioxide released is captured and stored in rocks, reducing the amount emitted into the atmosphere. In order to implement these methods, we need land to be able to plant the trees and crops on and there is a limited amount of land on Earth, much of which is already being utilised [4].

Food Security

Food security is not only dependent on the availability of food but also the access to food, how it is utilised and how reliable food sources are [3].  It is a common perception that food insecurity only occurs in poor countries, however it is a global problem, happening in every country across the world – in North America and Europe, 8% of the population suffers from food insecurity [1]. This problem could be further enhanced by increased competition for land, with those carrying out mitigation methods. Research studies [5,6] have shown that the impact of mitigation on food security could be worse than the effects of climate change itself by 2050 [1]. This demonstrates how important it is for us to explore both the positive and negative impacts of mitigation, as it could have serious consequences.

Inside a supermarket in Kansas. Image: Dean Hochman, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

If land is prioritised for mitigation purposes, this could lead to a reduction in food production, leading to higher food prices and therefore there will be an increased amount of people who cannot afford food [3]. Food insecurity will be experienced on various levels across the world as demonstrated by Figure 1, which shows how different elements of food security would be affected by LBM (land based mitigation). Figure 1 shows not only that food availability and purchasing power will decrease and food prices will increase, but also shows the variability of effects of LBM in different regions of the world, e.g. there will a higher increase in food prices in South/Southeast Asia compared to the other areas.

Conclusion

If food insecurity becomes worse, then it could affect many more lives. How would a rise in food price affect your daily life and your financial situation?

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References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2019) The state of food security and nutrition in the world. http://www.fao.org/3/ca5162en/ca5162en.pdf [27.11.2020]

[2] United Nations Development Programme (ND) Sustainable Development Goals. https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html#:~:text=The%20Sustainable%20Development%20Goals%20(SDGs,peace%20and%20prosperity%20by%202030[27.11.2020]

[3] Doelman, J. , Stehfest, E. , Tabeau A. and van Meijl, H. (2019) Making the Paris agreement climate targets consistent with food security objectives. Global Food Security, 23, 93-103

[4] Lawrence, M. , Schäfer, S. , Muri, H. , Scott, V. , Oschlies, A. , Vaughan, N. , Boucher O. , Schmidt, H. , Haywood, J. and Scheffran, J       . (2018) Evaluating climate geoengineering proposals in the context of the Paris agreement temperature goals. Nature Communications 9, 3734

[5] Van Meijl, P. , Havlik, P. , Lotze-Campen, H. , Stehfast, E. , Witzke, P. , Domínguez, I.P. , Bordirsky, B.L. , van Dijk, M. , Doelman, J. and Fellmann, T. (2018) Comparing impacts of climate change and mitigation on global agricukture by 2050. Environmental Research Letters, 13

[6] Hasegawa, T., Fujimori, S., Havlík, P., Valin, H., Bodirsky, B.L., Doelman, J.C., Fellmann, T., Kyle, P., Koopman, J.F., Lotze-Campen, H. and Mason-D’Croz, D. (2018) Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy. Nature Climate Change, 8, 699-703