Climate Apocalypse Fantasy: From Next Year, Crop Yields will Begin to Fall

Essay by Eric Worrall

A graph with a predictive inflection point like that would be laughed out of a high school science class.

How climate breakdown is putting the world’s food in peril – in maps and charts

From floods to droughts, erratic weather patterns are affecting food security, with crop yields projected to fall if changes are not made

Frederick O’Brien, Pablo Gutiérrez and Ashley Kirk
Thu 18 Dec 2025 18.00 AEDT

Experts have warned that the world’s ability to feed itself is under threat from the “chaos” of extreme weather caused by climate change.

Crop yields have increased enormously over the past few decades. But early warning signs have arrived as crop yield rates flatline, prompting warnings of efficiency hitting its limits and the impacts of climate change taking effect.

At first glance trends seem positive. Farming methods have become more and more efficient over the last 80 years.

However, multiple projections suggest that climate change will soon have key crops plateauing, then sliding down again. The chart shows how crop yields could fall over the rest of the century under a high-emissions scenario.

The effects of climate change are predicted to reduce the yields of all of these key crops. This modelling only takes into account forecasts for climate change and income growth, and does not account for other factors that may limit this effect or boost yields, such as technological innovations or land use changes.

Meanwhile, the world’s population is expected to grow by a further 2 billion by the end of the century.

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More than 600 million people worldwide are projected to face food insecurity – or worse – by 2030. Increasingly erratic climates will only make the situation worse unless action is taken.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/dec/18/how-climate-breakdown-is-putting-the-worlds-food-in-peril-in-maps-and-charts

The following is the abstract of a study cited by the Guardian authors, but I don’t think the Guardian authors had anything to do with the study;

• Article
• Open access
• Published: 18 June 2025

Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation

• Andrew Hultgren, 
• Tamma Carleton, 
• Michael Delgado, 
• Diana R. Gergel, 
• Michael Greenstone, 
• Trevor Houser, 
• Solomon Hsiang, 
• Amir Jina, 
• Robert E. Kopp, 
• Steven B. Malevich, 
• Kelly E. McCusker, 
• Terin Mayer, 
• Ishan Nath, 
• James Rising, 
• Ashwin Rode & 
• Jiacan Yuan 

Nature volume 642, pages 644–652 (2025)Cite this article

Abstract

Climate change threatens global food systems¹, but the extent to which adaptation will reduce losses remains unknown and controversial². Even within the well-studied context of US agriculture, some analyses argue that adaptation will be widespread and climate damages small^3,4, whereas others conclude that adaptation will be limited and losses severe^5,6. Scenario-based analyses indicate that adaptation should have notable consequences on global agricultural productivity^7,8,9, but there has been no systematic study of how extensively real-world producers actually adapt at the global scale. Here we empirically estimate the impact of global producer adaptations using longitudinal data on six staple crops spanning 12,658 regions, capturing two-thirds of global crop calories. We estimate that global production declines 5.5 × 10¹⁴ kcal annually per 1 °C global mean surface temperature (GMST) rise (120 kcal per person per day or 4.4% of recommended consumption per 1 °C; P < 0.001). We project that adaptation and income growth alleviate 23% of global losses in 2050 and 34% at the end of the century (6% and 12%, respectively; moderate-emissions scenario), but substantial residual losses remain for all staples except rice. In contrast to analyses of other outcomes that project the greatest damages to the global poor^10,11, we find that global impacts are dominated by losses to modern-day breadbaskets with favourable climates and limited present adaptation, although losses in low-income regions losses are also substantial. These results indicate a scale of innovation, cropland expansion or further adaptation that might be necessary to ensure food security in a changing climate.

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Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09085-w

The lack of allowance for adaption cited by the Guardian authors has a substantial impact on outcomes. The following is a graph from the study above, indicating that even using the pessimistic assumptions of climate alarmists, yields of some crops such as rice might significantly rise, once adaption such as land use changes and CO2 fertilisation are taken into consideration, though the study still predicts a 17.6% drop in per capita calorie consumption, even when adaption is taken into consideration.

Food is insensitive to temperature, because humans are smart. In Bundaberg, near where I live, farmers grow Maine potatoes, even though subtropical Bundaberg (average temperature 72F) is far warmer than Maine (average temperature 45-46F). The farmers defeat scorching hot Bundaberg Summer weather by planting the potatoes in Fall. The potatoes have no problem growing through our mild winters, and are ready for harvest in Spring, before the arrival of our intense Summer heat.

I am so fed up with end of food articles which ignore obvious responses to warmer weather, such as planting different crops, or adjusting sowing times. And not including error bars in the Guardian graph at the top of this article in my opinion adds even more unnecessary alarm to the pessimistic study on which the Guardian article is based.