UN official warns of 30% drop in world food output by 2050 if climate trends continue

Science, creativity and early warning are crucial for future of agriculture, FAO says

• 

  A man wears a face mask that reads "no climate justice without human rights" during a protest at the COP27 UN Climate Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. AP

• 

  A presentation at the American University in Cairo Pavilion. Reuters

• 

  Egyptian artist Bahia Sheha stands inside her installation "Heaven & Hell in the Anthropocene." AFP

• 

  Akihiro Nishimura, minister of the environment of Japan, reviews notes with others at the COP27. AP

• 

  US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, right, and Xie Zhenhua, China's special envoy for climate greet each other at the COP27 UN Climate Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. AP

• 

  Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva poses for a group photograph with representatives of his country's indigenous people. AFP

• 

  People attend the COP27 UN Climate Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. EPA

• 

  Activists dancing during a discussion on leaflets at the Cop27 climate conference, taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. AFP

• 

  An activist wears a polar bear outfit as part of campaigning. AFP

• 

  From left, Rakia Amandou of Niger, Ba Aminata of Burkina Faso, Kenyan Rosemary Nenini, Fatima Mustafa Ahmed from Sudan and Djeneb Dicko from Burkina Faso at the Indigenous Peoples Pavilion. AP

• 

  Abdulla Nasser Musallam Al Rahbi, Oman's Ambassador to Egypt and Permanent Representative to the Arab League, speaks at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. AFP

• 

  Climate activists demonstrate in the designated protest zone. AP

• 

  Sheikh Abdullah, Director General of Environment at the Public Authority of Kuwait, speaks at Cop27. AFP

• 

  Visitors at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Centre. AFP

• 

  A display outside the convention centre. AFP

• 

  A fountain in the green zone at the International Convention Centre at sunset. AFP

• 

  Mohamed bin Daina, right, Bahrain's Special Envoy for Climate Affairs and Chief Executive at the Supreme Council for Environment, at the conference. AFP

• 

  Members of Extinction Rebellion stage a protest at the Glencairn tidal pool outside Cape Town, South Africa to mark Cop27's 'Water Day'. AP

• 

  From left, Fahad Al Maskari of the Khalifa University, Frank Hartmann, Ghaleb Al Breiki of the UAE University, and Mouna Maroun of the University of Haifa, sign an agreement at Cop27. AFP

• 

  John Kerry, US special presidential envoy for climate, at Cop27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. AP Photo

• 

  Australian climate activists offer bananas to climate summit participants. AFP

• 

  Climate activist Sabrina Elba. AP Photo

• 

  Egyptian security forces stand guard during the protest. AFP

• 

  US President Joe Biden. AFP

• 

  Mr Biden with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. AP

• 

  A Cop27 sign in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, provides the backdrop for this woman's selfie. Reuters

• 

  Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi speaks to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the climate summit. AFP

• 

  A water wonderland greets this child at an acquarium in the Cop27 Green Zone. Reuters

• 

  Mr El Sisi, second left, takes part in a cycling marathon on the sidelines of Cop27. EPA

• 

  Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaks in Sharm El Sheikh about 'complicated' talks to set up a protection zone around Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. AFP

• 

  Frankie the dinosaur. Reuters

• 

  US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Reuters

• 

  Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan, CEO of the Alliances for Global Sustainability; Mariam Al Mheiri, Minister of Climate Change and Environment and Minister of State for Food Security; and Hatem Dowidar, group CEO at e&. AFP

• 

  Sameh Shoukry, Cop27 president, centre left, poses for photos in the youth pavilion. AP

• 

  A visitor looks at the 'Zero Point' series of collage portraits by Turkish artist Deniz Sagdic, each of which is made from a particular kind of upcycled waste material. Getty

• 

  Participants visit the Ukrainian pavillon. AFP

• 

  Mr Kerry speaks during a session on accelerating the clean energy transition in developing countries. AP

• 

  Youth climate activists. Pictured, from the left, Eric Njuguna of Kenya, Nicole Becker of Argentina, Vanessa Nakate of Uganda, Sophia Kianni from Iran, and Mitzi Jonelle Tan of the Philippines. AP

• 

  Muhammad Sulaiman Al Jasser, right, chairman of the Islamic Development Bank Group, poses for a photo with Mohamed Hadi Al Hussaini, the UAE's Minister of State for Financial Affairs. AFP

• 

  Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Bloomberg

• 

  A police officer stands at the entrance of the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Centre during Cop27. Reuters

• 

  United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. AP Photo

• 

  Former US vice president Al Gore speaks during a session at Cop27. AP Photo

• 

  Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest. AFP

If climate change continues at its current pace, global food production would drop at least 30 per cent by 2050, a top UN official said.

The warning by Zitouni Ould-Dada, deputy director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, comes as delegates from about 200 nations grapple with a host of climate-change issues at the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.

The two-week summit is scheduled to wrap up on Friday, with its Egyptian hosts hoping it will produce an outcome that goes some way towards implementing financial pledges made during past summits, sets new targets to check climate change, and eases issues dividing developing countries badly hit by climate change and rich nations responsible for the vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions.

Mr Ould-Dada said global food supplies are currently badly hit by the combined effects of the disruption of supply chains following the coronavirus pandemic, the fallout from climate change, such as floods, droughts and storms, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war.

• 

  The Kuwait Towers are shrouded amid a sandstorm. The world has seen more extreme weather in the past decade, with the Gulf witnessing cyclones, flooding and extreme heat. EPA

• 

  A formerly sunken boat sits upright on the shore of Lake Mead, Nevada, where water levels have dropped. EPA

• 

  Homes surrounded by floodwater in Pakistan's south-western Baluchistan province earlier this year. AP Photo

• 

  Steam rises from a coal-fired power plant near Grevenbroich, Germany. AP Photo

• 

  Activists display prints replicating solar panels during a rally to mark Earth Day in Washington. AP Photo

• 

  A glacier, which has lost most of its ice in the past few years, on Mount Zugspitze, Germany. AP Photo

• 

  A bucket wheel excavator mining coal at an open-cast mine in Luetzerath, Germany. AP Photo

• 

  Climate activists form a human chain spelling out '100% renewable', at Cop21 in Paris in 2015. AP

• 

  US president George W Bush and first lady Barbara Bush sign a pledge to protect the Earth in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. AP Photo

• 

  Extinction Rebellion activists holds placards at Cop26 last year in Glasgow, Scotland. AP Photo

• 

  Demonstrators hold banners calling for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. AP Photo

• 

  An artwork entitled 'One Heart One Tree' by Naziha Mestaoui is displayed on the Eiffel Tower before the 2015 Paris climate conference. AP Photo

• 

  A woman works at a coal depot in Ahmedabad, India, in May. AP Photo

• 

  Plastic waste on the banks of the Nile in Cairo in September. AP Photo

• 

  Steam rises from a coal-fired power plant Niederaussem, Germany. AP Photo

• 

  Lake Poopo, home to the Uru Murato indigenous community in Bolivia, has largely become a desert. AFP

• 

  US firefighters battle a blaze near Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 2011. AP Photo

• 

  Cars on motorway in Frankfurt, Germany. Vehicle emissions are a contributor to climate change. AP Photo

• 

  The rapidly drying marshes of Chibayish in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province. AFP

“If this rate of climate change-induced droughts and flooding continues, there will at least be a 30 per cent drop in global food production by 2050,” Mr Ould-Dada, whose FAO brief includes climate change, biodiversity and the environment, told The National in an interview on the sidelines of the climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Ironically, he said there is enough food at present to feed the world’s now eight billion people, but that a third of it is wasted.

The UN says the world throws away around 931 million tonnes of food, most of it ending up in landfills, where it decomposes and produces around a 10th of the world's climate-warming gases.

Nations around the world pledged in 2015 to halve food waste by 2030, but few are on track to do so.

The US, Australia and New Zealand are among the world’s top five food wasters. The US is also the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter.

Mr Ould-Dada emphasised the do-or-die target to cap the rise of the planet’s temperature at 1.5° above pre-industrial levels. But, he cautioned that the current 1.2° rise has proven bad enough, and 1.5° could well be disastrous.

He cited the wave of extreme weather seen across the world this year, from drought in the Horn of Africa and floods in Pakistan to wildfires in California, floods in Germany and unusually high temperatures in Britain.

He also cited pockets of hunger, mostly in Africa, such as Sudan and Somalia.

“Look at what 1.2° has brought upon us already. We are frightened by what we have to deal with now and even more so about 1.5°,” he said.

“Scientists were initially saying let us keep it under 2.0° and then modified that to 1.5°. Now, they are saying 1.5° could be a threat to the human race.”

Turning back to food production, he said sustainable agriculture was now a necessity.

Siblings share a meal in their family home in the village of Al-Bu Hussain on the banks of a former canal which has dried up in Diwaniya, Iraq. Reuters

“We have no choice but to adapt to the new realities of climate change, like efficient and economic use of water. Some crops are no longer viable,” he said. “We must become more creative.”

Mr Ould-Dada said adapting to climate change in the agricultural sector required science, creativity and early warning.

“The science and the creativity are there, but we must accelerate the pace at which we utilise them. There must also be more investment in early warning systems,” he said, explaining that the latter ranges from weather satellites in orbit to farmers' mobile phones.

“Droughts and floods don’t suddenly happen. With reliable early warning systems, farmers could be given time to prepare themselves and seek protection.”