An article in the Financial Times about the threat of hunger from climate change and water scarcity I was sent by a professor of mine
This is part of the input I sent back, although he probably already knows all this..
Even if we were able to successfully hold carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a safe threshhold(somewhere between 350-450 ppm), we're still going to get 1-2 degrees of warming from the pollution we've already caused. Under a successful mitigation scenario, a lot of countries in the global south are looking at sizable decreases in agricultural yields by 2050. It varies depending on the region obviously but the casual percentages seem to be around a 20-25% drop. This is why we don't only need to mitigate the damage of climate change, but also provide money for adaption and for sounder farming techniques that aren't used in much of the developing world... so that we can offset these yield losses.
At the same time, we need to stabilize carbon dioxide in the atomosphere at a threshhold below 450 ppm at the least, probably far lower. The consequences of going over 2 degrees of planetary warming are catastrophic, and there is no reasonable adaptation for it that will be able to prevent billions from going hungry.
Matt Dernoga
