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Review
. 2007 Dec 11;104(50):19703-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0701976104. Epub 2007 Dec 6.

Global food security under climate change

Josef Schmidhuber  1 , Francesco N Tubiello
Affiliations
Review

Global food security under climate change

Josef Schmidhuber et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

This article reviews the potential impacts of climate change on food security. It is found that of the four main elements of food security, i.e., availability, stability, utilization, and access, only the first is routinely addressed in simulation studies. To this end, published results indicate that the impacts of climate change are significant, however, with a wide projected range (between 5 million and 170 million additional people at risk of hunger by 2080) strongly depending on assumed socio-economic development. The likely impacts of climate change on the other important dimensions of food security are discussed qualitatively, indicating the potential for further negative impacts beyond those currently assessed with models. Finally, strengths and weaknesses of current assessment studies are discussed, suggesting improvements and proposing avenues for new analyses.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
The share of agriculture in total GDP in many developing countries has rapidly declined over the last decades; it is worth noting that in the high-income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries today, the share of agriculture in GDP is <2%.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Food Agriculture Organization. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2001. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization; 2002.
    1. Tubiello FN, Soussana J-F, Howden SM. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104:19686–19690. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 2007. in press.
    1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, Summary for Policy Makers, Working Group III, International Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 2000.
    1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ Press; 2007. in press.

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