Yeah, like they can do anything about it. Here’s an idea. How about more CO2 and less grain use for ethanol and other biofuels?
CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
Experts from 6 continents are set to produce policy recommendations for boosting food production in face of harsher climates, increasing populations, scarce resources
COPENHAGEN (11 March 2011) — Recent droughts and floods have contributed to increases in food prices. These are pushing millions more people into poverty and hunger, and are contributing to political instability and civil unrest. Climate change is predicted to increase these threats to food security and stability. Responding to this, the world’s largest agriculture research consortium today announced the creation of a new Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change.
Chaired by the United Kingdom’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the Commission will in the next ten months seek to build international consensus on a clear set of policy actions to help global agriculture adapt to climate change, achieve food security and reduce poverty and greenhouse gas emissions.
There is a rich body of scientific evidence for sustainable agriculture approaches that can increase production of food, fibre and fuel, help decrease poverty and benefit the environment, but agreement is needed on how best to put these approaches into action at scale. Evidence also shows that climate change, with population growth and pressures on natural resources, is set to produce food shortages and biodiversity loss worldwide unless action is taken now.
“Extreme weather like the droughts in Russia, China and Brazil and the flooding in Pakistan and Australia have contributed to a level of food price volatility we haven’t seen since the oil crisis of 40 years ago,” Beddington said. “Unfortunately, this could be just a taste of things to come because in the next few decades the build-up of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere could greatly increase risk of droughts, flooding, pest infestation and water scarcity for agriculture systems already under tremendous stress.”
The Commission brings together senior natural and social scientists working in agriculture, climate, food and nutrition, economics, and natural resources from Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, India, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.
“I think policymakers are eager for a clear set of recommendations supported by a strong scientific consensus for achieving food security in a world where weather extremes seem to becoming more and more common,” said Dr. Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Research Director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and the Commission’s Deputy Chair. “This Commission is confronting a problem not just of the future but, for places like Bangladesh, a problem of the present. We already are seeing major changes in growing conditions caused by higher temperatures and loss of productive lands to rising sea levels.”
Today, scientists are increasingly concerned that more extreme weather events, especially drought and floods will impede the growth in food production required to avert hunger and political instability as the global population increases to nine billion people by 2050. Even an increase in global mean temperatures of only two degrees Celsius—the low end of current estimates—could significantly reduce crop and livestock yields. Supporting these concerns has been the weather-induced crop losses that contributed to high food prices this year and in 2008.
The World Bank reported in February that the recent rise in food prices—which included a doubling of wheat prices and a 73 percent increase in maize prices—already has pushed an extra 44 million people into poverty. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said food prices have been an “aggravating factor” in the political turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East and that their destabilizing effect “could become more serious.”
The Commission has been set up by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security program (CCAFS) – a 10-year effort launched by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) – with support from the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development.
“Our ability to deal with the effects of climate change on food security, in both the developed and developing world, will largely determine whether our future is one marked by stability or perpetual food shocks,” said Dr Bruce Campbell, Director of CCAFS. “But there are so many perspectives on the best way for farmers to adapt to climate change—and for farmers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as well—that we have ended up sort of paralyzed by a lack of clear choices.”
The Commission will synthesize existing research to clearly articulate scientific findings on the potential impact of climate change on food security globally and regionally. The Commission will then produce a set of specific policy actions for dealing with these challenges.
The Commission’s findings will be primarily directed to international policy, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Rio+20 Earth Summit, and the Group of 20 (G20) industrialized and developing countries.
The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change is identifying what policy changes and actions are needed now to help the world achieve sustainable agriculture that contributes to food security and poverty reduction, and helps respond to climate change adaptation and mitigation goals. The Commission is an initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), with additional support from the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development.
Full list of Commissioners
Biographical details are available at http://ccafs.cgiar.org/content/commission/commissioners
- Professor Sir John Beddington, CMG FRS Chief Scientist, Government Office for Science, United Kingdom (Commission Chair)
- Dr Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Research Director, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Bangladesh
- Dr Adrian Fernández Bremauntz, Senior Consultant, ClimateWorks Foundation, Mexico
- Dr Megan Clark, FTSE, GAICD, Chief Executive Officer, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia
- Dr Marion Guillou, President, Institut Scientifique de Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France
- Professor Molly Jahn, Laboratory of Genetics and Department of Agronomy and Special Advisor to the Chancellor and Provost for Sustainability Sciences, the University of Madison-Wisconsin, USA
- Professor Lin Erda, Director of the Research Centre of Agriculture and Climate Change, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China
- Professor Tekalign Mamo, State Minister and Minister’s Advisor, Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia
- Dr Nguyen Van Bo, President, Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Science, Vietnam
- Dr Carlos A Nobre, Director of the Center for Earth System Science, National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Brazil
- Professor Bob Scholes, Fellow, Natural Resources and the Environment, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa
- Dr Rita Sharma, Secretary, National Advisory Council (Prime Minister’s Office), India
- Professor Judi Wakhungu, Executive Director, African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS), Kenya
Key facts on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change from the CCAFS program:
- A 4-degree rise in temperatures will have profound effects on farming, cutting down both the range of potential adaptation options and the efficacy of those options. Different crop models give different estimates, but ensembles of models suggest average yield drops of 19% for maize and 47% for beans, and much more frequent crop failures. (Source: Thornton et. al. 2010 – http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934/117.full)
- The first half of the 21st century is likely to see increases in food prices, and increasing demand driven by population and income growth. Even without climate change, prices could rise by 10% (for rice) to 54% (for maize) by 2050. With climate change, price increases more or less double, ranging from 31% for rice in the optimistic scenario to 100% for maize in the baseline scenario. (Nelson et. al. 2010 – http://www.ifpri.org/publication/food-security-farming-and-climate-change-2050)
- Climate change provides a massive and urgent incentive to intensify efforts to disseminate the fruits of past research, to adapt it to farmer contexts in different developing countries, and to put in place the necessary policies and incentives. The benefits of adopting many of the existing technologies could be sufficient to override the immediate negative impacts of climate change. Key messages from the major Foresight project on the Future of Global Food and Farming, lead by Professor Sir John Beddington:
- Addressing climate change and achieving sustainability in the global food system need to be recognised as dual imperatives.
- Ambitious, and in some case legally binding, targets for reducing emissions have been set, which cannot be achieved without the food system playing an important part.
There is a clear case for substantially integrating and improving considerations of agriculture and food production in negotiations on global emissions reductions.
The program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is a strategic partnership of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). CCAFS brings together the world’s best researchers in agricultural science, development research, climate science, and Earth System science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security. For more information, visit www.ccafs.cgiar.org.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for sustainable development with the funders of this work. The funders include developing and industrialized country governments, foundations, and international and regional organizations. The work they support is carried out by 15 members of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, and the private sector. www.cgiar.org – http://cgiarconsortium.cgxchange.org.
The Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) was established in 2001 to promote cooperation for the integrated study of the Earth system, the changes that are occurring to the system and the implications of these changes for global sustainability. Bringing together global environmental change researchers worldwide, the ESSP comprises four international global environmental change research programmes: DIVERSITAS; the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP); the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP); and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). http://www.essp.org/
The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development is a network of 34 bilateral and multilateral donors, international financing institutions, intergovernmental organisations and development agencies.
Members share a common vision that agriculture and rural development is central to poverty reduction, and a conviction that sustainable and efficient development requires a coordinated global approach.
The Platform was created in 2003 to increase and improve the quality of development assistance in agriculture and rural development. www.donorplatform.org
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Supporting these concerns has been the weather-induced crop losses that contributed to high food prices this year and in 2008.”
terrible oil crop losses in 2008 too:
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=crude-oil&months=360
sarc/
Our crops already grow in areas with a much bigger temperature difference than 4C. So, even today’s technology is not affected by the change they stated.
But, more important is they appear to assume we will make no future advances in hybrids. Almost 40 years in the future and they think we can’t figure out how to grow plants in a slightly warmer climate? What a bunch of technology-challenged idiots.
CGIAR?
Probably more apt if it were named CIGAR ’cause it’s just money going up in smoke.
I think it is quite right that they should look at the effect of climate change – sorry, is it still called that this week? – on food production. Just a shame they seem to be looking at the temperature going up rather than the much more likely down – that’s when the problems really start. Just go back to the Little Ice Age – oh, hang on that didn’t happen did it, just can’t find your hockey stick when you need it can you? I still can’t get over all those faked accounts of frost fairs on the fozen Thames in dear old London town….
Is anyone old enough to remember “Parkinson’s Law” by the English professor C. Northcote Parkinson? It was published in the 1950s. Dig up a copy and study it. It is very funny and very insightful.
It provides a great extension of Pamela Grey’s comment and an explanation for all those commissions and study panels.
This idea is total rubbish, any agricultural advisor or practitioner knows that a warming world would release so much viable farming land and water resources that our potential to increase food production woiuld be massively enhanced.
Most knowledgeable farmers, particularly those in mid west USA, South America and Australia fear a warming northern Canada and Russia, as they know they would be totally unable to compete with food produced from those regions.
It is almost the case, if you were so silly as to believe in AGW, to make the call to halt global warming as it looks like destroying the current competitive ability of farmers to produce food for the world markets.
Do not forget that John Beddington is the person who directed the “research” and the paper “Land Use Futures: Making the Most of Land in the 21st Century”. The scenarios John directed include compulsory mass UK population “dispersal” to the north, forfeiture of property rights, “shared” means of production and fruits of production. Yeah that has worked a treat in the past with only loss of life counted inthe hundreds of millions. The fact that any rational person would put his or her name to such a paper just shows the disconnect between the rent seekers and the peasants. A quote from the paper,
“In another scenario, the Government redefines land as a national resource and the rights of landowners are balanced with “society’s rights to public benefits from the services produced by it”. Home ownership falls as people begin to embrace the idea of “stewardship” of shared natural resources.”
See: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7041857.ece
Sounds like a communists wet dream.
Oh and here’s another little gem about Mr Beddington from The Times Online, “THE government’s chief scientist and his wife have made £500,000 in the past year in a company overseeing commercial fishing that allegedly threatens one of the world’s most pristine marine environments.”
Found here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article7043938.ece
A true worthy for the position of chief scientist/Alarmist in Chief who I understand is a population biologist by trade.
Jim_in_TX says:
Anyone, ANYONE who thinks there will be long range price increases in corn, wheat, cotton, cattle and hogs should get right on down to their local bank and borrow, say, $5,000,000 and get into farming.
I’m pretty sure we’re going to see those increases. Problem is, the farmers won’t get a penny of it.
Beddington was the man who persuaded Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that ‘Global Warming’ was the greatest danger to mankind, back in the 1980s. On that basis she made him Head of the Met. Office and gave him £150 million to buy the biggest Supercomputer in the UK to forecast global warming for the next century. His supercomputer cannot forecast 6 months ahead – they recently abandoned all attempts to give a winter seasonal forecast – but they want us to believe it will forecast 50 years ahead. After his triumph at the MET office, Beddington went off to create the IPCC and was I believe its first Director? He replaced himself at the MET office with WWFs director of global warming campaigns – since when the MET office has been a global warming lobbyist group – not a weather forecaster.
After some years at IPCC Beddington left and when it became apparent that Global Warming wasnt working, HE rebranded it ‘Climate Change’.
He is now fronting for the ‘Crop Protection Association’ – alias Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta and has been all over the UK media in recent weeks telling us that global food security and the threat of starvation is the NEW BIG THING. his answer, courtesy of the CPA is wall to wall use of GM Crops, systemic pesticides and global corporations.
This man is an utter [snip] who sold his soul years ago. somebody please
make him shut up.
This reminded of an article that portrayed the life of Borlaug and his achievements.
I don’t have the original to hand but it included references to those of a pious nature that tried to limit his methods in Africa. I did find this that summarises those efforts, in the original that I read there are suggestions of population control. Borlaug himself sums up the actions of office bound activists that impose their world view on countless lives whilst remaining safely tucked up in their own comfortable world.
Mick.
http://www.answers.com/topic/norman-borlaug
Ambitious, and in some case legally binding, targets for reducing emissions have been set, which cannot be achieved without the food system playing an important part.
What does this statement mean? It simply doesn’t make sense. I think that they mean that as a result of their stupidity, in setting legally binding (and unnecessary) emissions targets, they now face problems in providing food for the people they are starving. Well please forgive me but isn’t the goal to starve a few billion to death?
Douglas
Hugh Pepper says:
“The question must be asked, ‘If we can’t find the solution to the problem, who can?’ ”
Hugh, the answer to this growing problem is the free market. Government regulations and commissions block the free market from operating properly. Minimal regulation is necessary to require a level playing field and to assure food safety. But the current and proposed government restrictions are the cause of any shortages, not the solution.
The government even pays farmers not to farm. Is that insane, or what?
The first sentence in the report says it all.
This looks like the fraud of climate change is being used as a power grab to take over the food supply. If there are shortages in food it will be because government programs caused it not the climate. The power to regulate crops and redistribute food internationally not by the market but by government is too much power in the hands of politicians and regulators.
Mike says:
March 11, 2011 at 6:16 am
So we should not even plan adaptation measures just in case the mainstream scientific understanding of climate change is correct?
___
Not according to the AGW skeptics. In their world view, CO2 is a minor trace gas that only rises in response to warming but never the other way around. According to them, adaptation or mitigation or any money or effort spent related to climate change caused by the 40% rise in CO2 is a waste of money, or worse. At the very most, some skeptics might concede that CO2 causes “some” warming, but that warming will be good because it will hold off the next advance of the glaciers. IMO, such thinking will seem as absurd ten years from now as it does now when someone tells you that smoking doesn’t cause cancer.
I think the coded meaning of “Sustainable farming” is farming without the use of synthetic oil based fertilizers.
Inorganic fertilizer is often synthesized using the Haber-Bosch process, which produces ammonia as the end product. This ammonia is used as a feedstock for other nitrogen fertilizers, such as anhydrous ammonium nitrate and urea. These concentrated products may be diluted with water to form a concentrated liquid fertilizer (e.g. UAN). Ammonia can be combined with rock phosphate and potassium fertilizer in the Odda Process to produce compound fertilizer.
The use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers has increased steadily in the last 50 years, rising almost 20-fold to the current rate of 100 million tonnes of nitrogen per year.[4] The use of phosphate fertilizers has also increased from 9 million tonnes per year in 1960 to 40 million tonnes per year in 2000. A maize crop yielding 6-9 tonnes of grain per hectare requires 31–50 kg of phosphate fertilizer to be applied, soybean requires 20–25 kg per hectare.[5] Yara International is the world’s largest producer of nitrogen based fertilizers.[6]
The biggest users are China & Usa. Without synthetics crop yeilds will fall by about 3/4 go figure what that will do to food prices, also the price of Nitrogen is linked to the oil price if fuel prices double so does the fertilizer price ans so does the food price.
Start a garden if you have a plot of land and see if you can actually produce a usefull ammount of food from it.
R. Gates says:
“In [skeptics’] world view, CO2 is a minor trace gas that only rises in response to warming but never the other way around.”
First part is correct, CO2 is a minor trace gas. Second part is a strawman argument, and wrong.
In my experience most scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientist] agree that more CO2 results in some minuscule warming. But there are diminishing returns.
A major fraction of the warming over the past century and a half is due to the planet’s entirely natural emergence from the LIA. The warming attributable to CO2 is inconsequential. And it’s all good.
The busybodies in these commissions are meddling in affairs that are no business of the federal government. They need to butt out and spend some time reading the Constitution. These issues are reserved to the States, and the federal government is specifically excluded.
Never mind a UN attack on our food supply,the price of beer is rising so the revolt will be on.
R. Gates says: March 11, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Mike says:
March 11, 2011 at 6:16 am
So we should not even plan adaptation measures just in case the mainstream scientific understanding of climate change is correct?
[Not according to the AGW skeptics. ——In their world view, CO2 is a minor trace gas that only rises in response to warming but never the other way around. According to them, adaptation or mitigation or any money or effort spent related to climate change caused by the 40% rise in CO2 is a waste of money, or worse. At the very most, some skeptics might concede that CO2 causes “some” warming, but that warming will be good because it will hold off the next advance of the glaciers. IMO, such thinking will seem as absurd ten years from now as it does now when someone tells you that smoking doesn’t cause cancer]
—————————————————————————-
R Gates. So you speak for all sceptics with these several largely inaccurate points.
1) So in their ‘world’ sceptics don’t agree that co2 is a greenhouse gas. Wrong.
2) You lump adaption with mitigation. Wrong. They are separate issues and sceptics respond variously to these two ideas for action.
3) Warming is good will hold off the advance of glaciers. Whoever said that Mr Gates?
4. Such thinking is as absurd as someone saying smoking doesn’t cause cancer.
The analogy with cancer is absurd. Whether people in the past knew or believed that lung cancer was caused by smoking was a problem that was a matter of personal choice affecting (essentially) that person’s health. It is now proven that smoking does cause lung cancer but people are still free to smoke if the wish and some do. It is still a matter of free choice.
Forcing so called climate change by eliminating emissions of co2 is a totally different level of interference that is not a matter of individual choice but a totalitarian action imposed upon the world at large without a shred of evidence to say that it (co2) will cause CGW.
Co2 in the atmosphere is a beneficial gas. Life would not exist on this planet without it. But the ideal level of co2 in the atmosphere has not been determined by anyone as far as I am aware. We do know that plants thrive of much higher levels of co2 in the atmosphere. We do know that a warmer climate is beneficial for plant and animal life. Where is the evidence to say that co2 will cause catastrophic warming Mr. Gates? Can you show it?
But the measures being advocated by the ‘warmists’ will lead to certain hardships to many people of the world. Reducing energy supply by closing down coal fuelled power stations will lead to lower productivity in Europe and the US. The production of bio-fuels using corn as a feedstock deprives people of food. So according to you Mr Gates, the precautionary principle must be invoked even when there is no reason to invoke it. Therein lies madness.
Douglas
Related: the Daily Bayonet is good today.
Perhaps R Gates should read this.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100079237/aussie-sceptics-destroy-eu-carbon-commissioner/
Douglas
Members share a common vision that agriculture and rural development is central to poverty reduction, and a conviction that sustainable and efficient development requires a coordinated global approach.>>>
Yes, we’ve seen such tremendous success with central planning at the national level, it makes SO much sense to see how well it scales to the global level. Hey, I know, let’s call it a 5 Year Plan!
There is a clear case for substantially integrating and improving considerations of agriculture and food production in negotiations on global emissions reductions.>>>
Well let’s see if we can come up with a few ideas to help them out. What kinds of things could help produce more food?
More CO2! Yes, that’s known to improve crop yields.
More Greenhouses! Yes, they keep the crops inside them warmer and result in higher crop yields. Hey! Here’s an idea! Turn the whole planet into a giant greenhouse! How much CO2 would we need?
No more biofuels! We need to burn the oil they are replacing to make CO2, but just as important, we need to stop burning food.
We need to expand our arable land too. Easiest way would be too take the marginal land that’s right on the snow line and move it…nah, too much work, no place to put it…I know! Move the snowline! already got the global greenhouse thing going, should be able to push the snow line back too!
Fertilizer! Need to uptick our use of that for certain. I hear they are shoveling the stuff into big piles in Copenhagen, is anyone making any plans to spread it on the crops? Not much other use for it.
Recycle. For example, what could we do with those see through plastic scientists at the conference? Bing! Obvious! They’re plastic AND they’re see through. Teach them how to stack themselves up in pyramids and we can fly them anywhere in the world to turn that needs instant warming. Hot air, greenhouse walls, and fertilizer production easily assembled and taken down again when no longer needed.
Hi hear the polar bears are in dire straights. First assignment?
Here’s a link to Amazon’s page on it:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=parkinson%27s+law&x=0&y=0
Thanks Roger Knights for the link.
But to save anyone the effort of actually ordering a book let me say that Parkinson used history, logic, and mathematics to prove that administrative bodies will grow in size between 5.17 and 6.58 percent a year, “irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done”.
Beddington is a complete bozo. Andrew with Fred Singer made him look like what he is: A total nut job. I have never seen a more pathetic interview than the one he gave about 18 mnth ago.