Reducing climate change impacts on agriculture: Global and regional effects of mitigation, 2000-2080

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2006.05.027 Byline: Francesco N. Tubiello (a)(b), Gunther Fischer (a) Keywords: Agriculture; Climate impacts; Mitigation; World food supply Abstract: What are the implications for agriculture of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions? By when and by how much are impacts reduced? Where does it matter most? We investigated these questions within the new A2 emission scenario, recently developed at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis with revised population and gross domestic product projections. Coupling an agro-ecological model to a global food trade model, two distinct sets of climate simulations were analyzed: 1) A non-mitigated scenario, with atmospheric CO.sub.2 concentrations over 800 ppm by 2100; and 2) A mitigation scenario, with CO.sub.2 concentrations stabilized at 550 ppm by 2100. Impacts of climate change on crop yield were evaluated for the period 1990-2080, then used as input for economic analyses. Key trends were computed over the 21st century for food demand, production and trade, focusing on potential monetary (aggregate value added) and human (risk of hunger) impacts. The results from this study suggested that mitigation could positively impact agriculture. With mitigation, global costs of climate change, though relatively small in absolute amounts, were reduced by 75-100%; and the number of additional people at risk of malnutrition was reduced by 80-95%. Significant geographic and temporal differences were found. Regional effects often diverged from global net results, with some regions worse off under mitigation compared to the unmitigated case. Author Affiliation: (a) Land-Use Change and Agriculture Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria (b) Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Article History: Received 7 February 2006; Revised 12 April 2006; Accepted 24 May 2006