Page 14 - Climate Change and Food Systems

progress on climate change. In the longer term, trade rules should evolve to allow internalization
of the cost of carbon to avoid negatively affecting climate change mitigation. Likewise, future climate change mitigation policies should include measures designed to internalize the environmental costs of resources.
Combatting climate change must go hand in hand with alleviating poverty. Adverse effects of climate change are greater among poor people in developing countries who are highly dependent
on climate-sensitive natural resources yet have
the least adaptive capacity to cope with climate impacts. Consequently, there is increasing support for mainstreaming climate change responses within pro-poor development strategies. Mainstreaming offers the opportunity to implement ‘no regrets’ actions that can improve resiliency to current and future climate impacts for the most vulnerable groups while avoiding potential trade-offs between adaptation and development strategies.
Although our understanding of climate change impacts on food systems has expanded, more policy-relevant evidence is required. Stronger emphasis needs to be placed on other important drivers like bioenergy, water and trade. Climate impact science also needs to become more systems-based and improve cross-sectoral frameworks to examine a number of critical linkages: climate-food-trade, climate-nutrition- health, climate-food-water, and climate-food- energy. Since the effects of food insecurity and
environmental impacts are felt locally, more focus should be given to local validation of climate impacts, taking into account spatial variability, possible adaptation responses, local resource availabilities and constraints, and socio-economic determinants. Robust and reliable evidence is critical to the development of policies to address climate change impacts on agriculture, water
and trade. This is critical since climate policy
must cope with a certain level of unavoidable uncertainty in the evidence base. Consequently, a structured multi-partner dialogue and information exchange between the scientific community and policy makers is necessary to provide evidence- based support to climate-compatible food security policies.
This book examines these issues in detail and is the outcome of an expert consultation organized by FAO in November 2013 which gathered acknowledged experts in climate impact research. The 11 chapters cover the latest scientific
and economic evidence on climate impact assessments of crop and livestock systems. The chapters cover methodological overviews of global climate impact assessments (biophysical and economic) of food systems, as well as specific model-based analyses focusing on a particular region (Africa, Europe, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, South East Asia) and food systems (small grains, rice, livestock, bananas). Each chapter starts with take-home messages for non- specialist readers.
Maria Helena Semedo Deputy Director-General
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