The
leaked draft paints a bleak vision of the world if mitigation efforts
are not dramatically increased and emission reduction targets met.
(Photo: Shutterstock)
A draft of a global scientific review
on how human and natural systems are expected to respond to the growing
threat of climate change has been leaked and its contents—though not
wholly unexpected to those who have followed climate science news in
recent years—are nonetheless both alarming and devastating.
Titled,
Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability,
the leaked document is the draft version of the second installment of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest review of the
global scientific consensus on the global warming and climate change.
The IPCC's first installment, released in September,
focused
on assessing the global scientific community's combined research on the
causes, pace, and evidence of planetary climate change. As the
title of the leaked draft suggests, the next installment takes a more
focused looked at the way the projected climate impacts will play on a
variety of the Earth's systems both in the natural world, including the
oceans and natural habitats, and those, like agricultural and economic
systems, built by human society.
Focusing on what the draft report says about the future of world agriculture and food security, the
New York Times reports:
On the food supply, the new report finds [...] that over all, global
warming could reduce agricultural production by as much as 2 percent
each decade for the rest of this century.
During that period, demand is expected to rise as much as 14 percent
each decade, the report found, as the world population is projected to
grow to 9.6 billion in 2050, from 7.2 billion today, according to the
United Nations, and as many of those people in developing countries
acquire the money to eat richer diets.
Any shortfall would lead to rising food prices that would hit the
world’s poor hardest, as has already occurred from price increases of
recent years. Research has found that climate change, particularly
severe heat waves, was a factor in those price spikes.
The agricultural risks “are greatest for tropical countries, given
projected impacts that exceed adaptive capacity and higher poverty rates
compared with temperate regions,” the draft report finds.
Asked by the
New York Times, IPCC spokesperson Jonathan Lynn
did not dispute the authenticity of the document, but emphasized that
it was a "draft" still under review and said, “It’s likely to change.”
This is not the first time that drafts of the IPCC's work have been
released without authorization, but many simply acknowledge that the
review process—which includes assessments and input from hundreds of
scientists and experts working in dozens of countries around the
world—makes leaks nearly impossible to avoid.
The report on climate impacts looked specifically at how climate
change will impact a range of areas, including fresh and salt water
ecosystems, food production and agriculture, economic sectors, human
health, conflict and security scenarios, and the interplay of these
overlapping dynamics.
Offered with varying degrees of scientific consensus and confidence,
what follows is a partial list of the key impacts of climate change
contained in the leaked IPCC draft assessment:
- Climate change will reduce renewable surface water and groundwater
resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions, exacerbating
competition for water among sectors
- A large fraction of terrestrial and freshwater species faces
increased extinction risk under projected climate change during and
beyond the 21st century, especially as climate change interacts with
other pressures, such as habitat modification, over-exploitation,
pollution, and invasive species
- Due to sea-level rise throughout the 21st century and beyond,
coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse
impacts such as submergence, coastal flooding, and coastal erosion
- By 2100, due to climate change and development patterns and without
adaptation, hundreds of millions of people will be affected by coastal
flooding and displaced due to land loss
- Ocean acidification poses risks to ecosystems, especially polar
ecosystems and coral reefs, associated with impacts on the physiology,
behavior, and population dynamics of individual species
- Without adaptation, local temperature increases of 1°C or more above
preindustrial levels are projected to negatively impact yields for the
major crops (wheat, rice, and maize) in tropical and temperate regions,
although individual locations may benefit
- Heat stress, extreme precipitation, inland and coastal flooding, and
drought and water scarcity pose risks in urban areas for people,
assets, economies, and ecosystems, with risks amplified for those
lacking essential infrastructure and services or living in exposed areas
- Major future rural impacts will be felt in the near-term and beyond
through impacts on water supply, food security, and agricultural
incomes, including shifts in production of food and non-food crops in
many areas of the world
- Global mean temperature increase of 2.5°C above preindustrial levels
may lead to global aggregate economic losses between 0.2 and 2.0% of
income
- Until mid-century, climate change will impact human health mainly by
exacerbating health problems that already exist (very high confidence),
and climate change throughout the 21st century will lead to increases
in ill-health in many regions, as compared to a baseline without climate
change
- Climate change indirectly increases risks from violent conflict in
the form of civil war, inter-group violence, and violent protests by
exacerbating well-established drivers of these conflicts such as poverty
and economic shocks
- Throughout the 21st century, climate change impacts will slow down
economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security, and
trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and
emerging hotspots of hunger
The complete version of the leaked draft follows:
[LEAKED DRAFT*] IPCC: Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
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