Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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September 11, 2007

FAO Warns Climate Change Could be Major Threat to Food Security
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=1965D54:A6F02AD83191E160909ADE30EEA43F969574F7DCC14957C0 Expert says
developing countries would be hardest hit





World Food Program picture shows a displaced Burundian boy standing
outside houses destroyed by floods at Gatumba, near Bujumbura, 25 Jan
2007The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says climate change could
become a “major threat to world food security.” It calls climate
change one of the “main challenges humankind will have to face for
many years to come.”

About 140 international experts are meeting in Rome this week to
discuss the issue. One of them is Jeff Tschirley, chief of the FAO’s
Environment, Climate Change and Bio-Energy Division. From Rome, he
told VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua that a fourth
assessment report on climate change is about to be released.

“It’s the fourth time that scientific experts have come together to
assess the data related to climate change. What we have now between
this fourth report and the third report is …a validation that the
climate change impacts we’re now starting to see already. And we know
quite surely that the countries that are at risk from climate change,
at more risk, are the developing countries rather than the developed
countries. And when you look at that in the context of food security
and institutional capacity it really does face, at least the
agricultural sector, with a significant new set of challenges over the
short and long term,” he says.

Why are developing countries more at risk? Tschirley says, “If you
look at a map,





Effects of drought on farm landyou’ll see that the greatest part of
the land mass is above the equator. And you’ll see also that most of
the developing countries are on the equator or just slightly above and
a lot of them below. The fact that you have less of a buffering action
against changes in climate by having more land mass simply means that
(in) the northern latitudes, there will be negative impacts there, but
not to the extent of the southern latitudes, where we expect to see
more drought; we expect to see more floods, more intense flooding. We
are already seeing more fires…the developing countries by virtue of
their location on the planet are really feeling the impact more
directly than many of the developed countries will over the short
term, “ he says.

When it comes to climate change, the FAO says agriculture is “both a
culprit and victim.” Tschirley says, “It’s very much true because for
almost the last decade there’s been a very strong focus on in the
climate change community on emissions, on mitigation on emissions.”
The FAO estimates the livestock sector alone “accounts for 18 percent
of global greenhouse gas emissions, while deforestation is responsible
for 18 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. 





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