Chinese Climatologists Say Warming World Likely To Cut PRC Food Production 10% By 2030

[hatrack]

New Delhi, Nov.16 : Chinese scientists have warned that the country faces a major challenge in tackling the threat of global warming, adding that the climate is likely to get warmer and more extreme, leading to a drop in the production of major food crops. According to Zheng Guoguang,the new chief of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA),the average temperature in China will inch up by about 2 C by 2050 compared with the 2000 level.

In the latest effort to help mitigate the impact of climate change, Zheng has asked the 100,000 members working for the agency nationwide to develop measures to counter the adverse influence variable climate would have on food supply.

In many cases, crops grow faster when climate becomes warmer, but yields decline, Zheng said before heading to Spain to attend the 27th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is expected to launch the fourth and final volume of its "Climate Change 2007" assessment report for policymakers tomorrow in Valencia.

"If no improvement were made to the current farmland, production capacity would perhaps drop by up to 10 per cent by 2030, when the population will peak at 1.5 billion," the China Daily quoted Zheng, as saying. The country would have to produce another 100 million tons of grain for the added 200 million residents by then, but climate change would probably make a big dent in grain output, he added.

EDIT

http://www.beijingnews.net/story/300540

[kestrel91316]

1. kestrel says GW likely to cut PRC food production by 50%.

But get back to me in 6 months. I'll probably have to revise that WAY upward.......

Somethin's happenin' here
What it is ain't exactly clear......

[GliderGuider]

2. I'll up the ante: "AFRICA: Food production to halve by 2020"

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74481

JOHANNESBURG, 25 September 2007 (IRIN) - Food security in Africa is likely to be "severely compromised" by climate change, with production expected to halve by 2020, according to climate change experts.

The projections are contained in a report launched last week in London by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was followed by an experts' panel discussion.

"The discussions concluded that Africa is likely to be the most affected partly because of the increasing aridity in the north and Southern Africa: and these are the most populous parts of the continent," said Martin Parry, the co-chair of the IPCC’s working group which authored the report. He also listed the lack of technology available to adapt to environmental change as increasing the region's vulnerability.

About 25 percent of Africa's population - nearly 200 million people - do not have easy access to water; that figure is expected to jump by another 50 million by 2020 and more than double by the 2050s, according to the report.

Over 95 percent of Africa’s agriculture depends on rainfall, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "Models indicate that 80,000 square km of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa currently deemed constrained will improve as a result of climate change. However, 600,000 square km currently classed as moderately constrained will become severely limited," said the FAO.

Even with a minimal rise in global temperatures, crop production in the southern hemisphere - where rain fed agriculture is the norm - will probably decline, the FAO predicted.