Sonja's blog

by Sonja Vermeulen

Can agriculture contribute its share of emissions reductions without huge losses to the food security of poor people?  A step closer to a useful answer comes in Global climate policy impacts on livestock, land use, livelihoods, and food security, by Alla Golub, Benjamin Henderson, Thomas Hertel, Pierre Gerber, Steven Rose and Brent Sohngen.  Their approach provides an intriguing opportunity to investigate the interplay between climate change policies in forestry and those in agriculture. 

The article investigates the possible outcomes of global policies for land-based mitigation.  Specifically, the authors test how international policies to incentivize forest carbon sequestration and to tax emissions might, separately or together, affect emissions and household food security.  Policies are modeled as payments to forest producers and taxes on emitters in all sectors, both at a rate of US$ 27 per tonne of CO₂-equivalent – which is about triple the current price listed by the European Energy Exchange, but not unrealistic. Read more »

by Sonja Vermeulen

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Food price highs are with us yet again.  For certain commodities there is a direct link to climate.  Severe heat and drought in USA have sent maize over $8 a bushel for the first time in history. But do extreme “heat events” have longer-term effects on economies?  Some intriguing answers appear in Temperature shocks and economic growth: evidence from the last half century, an econometric study by Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken, which has been available as a working paper since the major food price crisis of 2008, and is now published formally.

The study analyzes the relationship between anomalous temperatures and economic performance in 125 countries between 1950 and 2003.  In short, rich countries do not show significant economic impacts from temperature shocks.  But in poor countries – which also tend to be hot and agricultural* – one standard deviation upwards in mean annual temperature reduces economic growth by 0.69 percentage points.  This means that years that are 1C hotter than average, which occur about once every 15 years, are associated with a mean reduction in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points. 

Unsurprisingly, the impact of temperature on agriculture is key.  Read more »

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New hard-hitting analysis from the Asia Development Bank (ADB) leaves no doubt that climate change is the single biggest risk to food security in the continent where 60% of us live.  At the sub-continental level, the picture is of course more complex.  Recent science suggests there may even be spots of optimism for food production and farmers’ livelihoods in Asia, as reported in Multi-year variability or unidirectional trends? Mapping long-term precipitation and temperature changes in continental Southeast Asia using PRECIS regional climate model by Guillaume Lacombe, Chu Thai Hoanh and Vladimir Smakhtin, from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Read more »