Climate Change Threatens to Disrupt Global Food Production, UN Says

Extreme weather events triggered by climate change threaten to disrupt crop production and drive up global food prices over the next decade, a top UN climate official says. According to climate projections, extreme heat waves will become more common and more intense, said Omar Baddour, division chief of the World Meteorological Organization’s World Climate Data & Monitoring Program. And while more intense precipitation could affect production of grains, livestock, and cooking oil in some parts of the world, including North America, more intense droughts are projected for some regions, including China. In China, record droughts this year threaten to cut grain output, and in the U.S. flooding along the Mississippi River and its tributaries has swamped 3.6 million acres of farmland. “Extreme events will become more intense in the future, especially the heat waves and extreme precipitations,” Baddour told Bloomberg. Earlier this year, Olam International, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of rice, predicted that climate change threatens “massive disruptions” to food supply chains.