Climate Change and World Food Security

✍ Scribed by Thomas E. Downing, Robert S. Chen, Robert W. Kates, Martin L. Parry (auth.), Thomas E. Downing (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 652
• Series: NATO ASI Series 37
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In the last half decade since sustainable development became a serious objective, what have we achieved? Are livelihoods more secure? Are nations wealthier and more resilient? Is environmental quality being restored or maintained? These are essential questions of development. Their answers are many, varied between communities and regions, even between individuals. Two years ago, in the aftermath of the Earth Summit and ratification of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, but before the first Conference of Parties, I participated in a panel at the inaugural Oxford Environment Conference on Climate Change and World Food Security. The panel vigorously reviewed issues of resilient development and food security. This book is a product of the Oxford Environment Conference. It takes the essential questions of sustainability as a starting point to focus on present food security and its future prospects in the face of climate change. Why is this book important? First, I believe our goals to end hunger are under threat. We know what to do in many respects, but fail to generate the finances and political will to change the structures that thrive on poverty. Second, I believe concern about the environment has become dangerously separated from the fundamental issues of human deprivation. Third, I believe climate change is a serious threat and I am dismayed at the way nations dither over how to control greenhouse gas emissions and mechanisms to meet the challenge of adverse climate impacts.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages I-X
Introduction....Pages 3-19
Towards a Food-Secure World: Prospects and Trends....Pages 23-51
Demand and Supply: Trends in Global Agriculture....Pages 53-73
The Future of Climate: Potential for Interaction and Surprises....Pages 77-113
Impacts of Potential Climate Change on Global and Regional Food Production and Vulnerability....Pages 115-159
Climate Change and Agricultural Trade: Who Benefits, Who Loses?....Pages 161-180
Climate Change and Food Insecurity: Toward a Sociology and Geography of Vulnerability....Pages 183-206
Changing Vulnerability to Food Insecurity and the International Response: The Experience of the World Food Programme....Pages 207-226
The Conjunction of Threats to Regional Food Production: How Serious Are Environment, Economy, Population and Climate?....Pages 227-256
Climate Change and Involuntary Migration: Implications for Food Security....Pages 257-275
Scenarios of Sustainability: The Challenges of Describing Desirable Features....Pages 277-288
Climate Change and the Agro-ecosystems in China....Pages 291-305
Agricultural Vulnerability and Poverty Alleviation in Bangladesh....Pages 307-346
Vulnerability of Bangladesh to Climate Change and Sea Level Rise....Pages 347-379
Enhancing Food Security in a Warmer and More Crowded World: Factors and Processes in Fragile Zones....Pages 381-419
Global Climate Change and Agricultural Productivity in Southern Africa: Thought for Food and Food for Thought....Pages 421-447
Climate Change: Some Likely Multiple Impacts in Southern Africa....Pages 449-483
Adaptation of Food Production to Drought in the Senegal River Basin....Pages 485-503
Pastoralist Production Systems and Climate Change....Pages 505-524
Agricultural Policy and Climate Change in Mexico....Pages 525-547
Implications of Policies to Prevent Climate Change for Future Food Security....Pages 551-587
An End-Use Analysis of Global Food Requirements....Pages 589-610
Policy Lessons from Communities under Pressure....Pages 611-624
Climate Change and Food Security: Agriculture, Health and Environmental Research....Pages 625-649
Back Matter....Pages 651-665

✦ Subjects

Meteorology/Climatology; Agriculture; Forestry; Geoecology/Natural Processes; Nature Conservation; Environmental Economics