Climate poses big threat to crop production, new study says
Why it matters: It's the first look at climate effects on staple crops to weigh farmers' "real-world adaptation measures" and fold them into projections of future damage, a summary states.
The Nature paper projects losses for all staples analyzed except rice, though there's lots of regional variation.
The big picture: The paper estimates that for every 1°C of temperature rise, global food production capacity falls by 120 calories per day per person.
"If the climate warms by 3 degrees, that's basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast," said co-author Solomon Hsiang, a Stanford environmental policy professor, in a statement.
Hot and relatively low-income regions are showing more adaptation to date than wealthier breadbaskets in more moderate climates. That's one reason future risks are so high.
State of play: The authors analyze over 12,600 regions in 54 countries, looking at six staple crops — corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum.
It's "one of the most comprehensive samples of subnational crop yields ever assembled," the study states.
It sees future gains in some areas, but declines on a global basis for most crops.
Threat level: One reason for the conclusions? Realism.
A clear-eyed look at how farming evolves is needed, the paper states, comparing its work to prior models that assume optimal responses.
In reality, financial constraints, market failures, human error and more influence farming.
What they found: Under a moderate emissions growth case, central estimates in 2100 — with adaptation and income growth — are -12% for corn, -13.5% for wheat, and -22.4% for soybeans, to name three.
But the uncertainty bands are quite big because they're looking well into the future.
What's next: Adaptation and higher wealth alleviate 6% of global losses in 2050 and 12% in 2100 in that moderate emissions scenario.
That's RCP 4.5 for you wonks out there, which still sees enough emissions to warm the world beyond Paris Agreement targets.
The paper also explores a runaway emissions case (RCP 8.5), though many scientists no longer consider this CO2 growth likely.
Zoom in: Check out the country-level projections for various crops.
The paper estimates that even with adaptation, parts of the U.S. could see corn and wheat declines in the 25% range in the moderate emissions case. Here's the same map under runaway emissions.
summary notes.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
Why a landmark ruling from the world's top court puts financial markets on notice
Gripped by corporate earnings season and U.S. President Donald Trump's back-and-forth tariff policy, investors largely shrugged off a historic climate ruling from the world's top court. But for some, the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) recent advisory opinion on state's legal obligations in the face of climate change could emerge as a watershed moment for financial markets. Günther Thallinger, a board member at Allianz, one of the world's biggest insurers, said that close watchers of the ICJ's July 23 ruling described it as perhaps the most significant climate development since the 2015 Paris Agreement. At the time, the pronouncement marked the ICJ's first-ever opinion on climate change and laid out that climate action is not optional. The court said in a unanimous ruling that governments and countries have a legal obligation to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions, protect present and future generations from the climate crisis and to cooperate internationally. Notably, the ICJ also found that fossil fuel production, including licensing and subsidies, "may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State." The ruling, which was the brainchild of young law students in low-lying Pacific island states and championed by the government of Vanuatu, is widely expected to have far-reaching legal and political consequences. Speaking in a personal capacity, Thallinger said that while the ICJ's opinion is based on existing law and conventions, the ruling could yet have meaningful ramifications for a vast range of assets — whether one cares about climate change or not. "If one takes as an investor what the International Court of Justice just said, then a revaluation of these assets needs to happen. Every prudent investor must do this now," Thallinger told CNBC by video call. "Even if they don't like the discussion around climate change, even if they would say they denigrate the Court of Justice completely, they must expect that, in some countries, some governments, some courts are going to follow this opinion," Thallinger said. "If they follow this opinion, it has asset valuation implications, quite clearly. So, this opinion for investors, for capital market participants, really means something." On the issue of licensing and subsidies, Thallinger said the ICJ's ruling could prove to be a significant development. That's because licensing and permitting for the mining sector, for example, and government subsidies for fossil fuels could be at risk following the court opinion. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas is the chief driver of the climate crisis. "If subsides are unlawful, then one should expect that subsidies are somehow stopped at a certain point in time," Thallinger said. "Now, certain business processes live on these subsidies or at least benefit to a certain degree on these subsidies. And, as always for an investor, usually you look simply at the cashflow, and if the cashflow part is missing or all of a sudden becomes much smaller then that means another valuation," he added. The U.S. and China, the world's two biggest carbon emitters, provided a mixed response to the ICJ's ruling. "As always, President Trump and the entire administration is committed to putting America first and prioritizing the interests of everyday Americans," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in response to the court opinion, Reuters reported. A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said the ruling has a "positive significance" for advancing international climate cooperation and sought to reaffirm the Asian country's status as a developing country. Not everyone is as concerned about the ICJ's ruling from an investor standpoint. "I feel like the wide spectrum of views that exist in the investor community on climate change, and the action that investors are supposed to take, will probably mean that the decision is a bit of a Rorschach test," Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights for Morningstar, told CNBC by video call. "People are just going to see things that kind of confirm their existing view," he added. A Rorschach test refers to a psychological assessment during which a person is asked to describe what they see in a series of inkblots. Ida Kassa Johannesen, head of commercial ESG at Saxo Bank, said the ICJ's intervention is a non-binding advisory opinion, rather than a ruling, "and this distinction is crucial." Companies with significant environmental footprints, such as those in the oil and gas, mining and heavy industry sectors, are likely to face increased litigation risk, which could affect their costs, valuation and reputation, Johannesen told CNBC by email. "As a result, investors and particular large institutional investors may begin to reallocate capital away from high-risk sectors to manage exposure to climate-related legal and reputational risks," she added. Saxo Bank's Johannesen pointed out that the U.S. and China both expressed reservations about the ICJ's opinion, emphasizing its non-binding nature and calling for flexibility in climate action. The Trump administration also recently signed into law the U.S. president's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a package that is favorable to mining and oil and gas companies. "All this sends mixed signals which would probably lead to fragmented market responses between the world's 2 largest economies and the [rest of the world], slow down global regulatory convergence and ultimately limit the (short-term) impact on markets and investor behavior," Johannesen said. A spokesperson at ABP, one of Europe's largest pension funds, welcomed what they billed as "the spirit" of the court's opinion, but said they do not anticipate any short-term ramifications for financial markets. "The ICJ's advisory opinion sends a signal that climate inaction may constitute a breach of international law. However, given its non-binding nature, we don't expect immediate changes in national policies or financial markets," an ABP spokesperson told CNBC by email. The Dutch pension fund, which doesn't invest in fossil fuels and says it actively supports climate solutions, highlighted that Europe, for example, already has a lot of climate legislation in place.
Gizmodo
17 hours ago
- Gizmodo
New Brain Interface Interprets Inner Monologues With Startling Accuracy
Scientists can now decipher brain activity related to the silent inner monologue in people's heads with up to 74% accuracy, according to a new study. In new research published today in Cell, scientists from Stanford University decoded imagined words from four participants with severe paralysis due to ALS or brainstem stroke. Aside from being absolutely wild, the findings could help people who are unable to speak communicate more easily using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), the researchers say. 'This is the first time we've managed to understand what brain activity looks like when you just think about speaking,' lead author Erin Kunz, a graduate student in electrical engineering at Stanford University, said in a statement. 'For people with severe speech and motor impairments, BCIs capable of decoding inner speech could help them communicate much more easily and more naturally.' Previously, scientists have managed to decode attempted speech using BCIs. When people physically attempt to speak out loud by engaging the muscles related to speech, these technologies can interpret the resulting brain activity and type out what they're trying to say. But while effective, the current methods of BCI-assisted communication can still be exhausting for people with limited muscle control. The new study is the first to directly take on inner speech. To do so, the researchers recorded activity in the motor cortex—the region responsible for controlling voluntary movements, including speech—using microelectrodes implanted in the motor cortex of the four participants. The researchers found that attempted and imagined speech activate similar, though not identical, patterns of brain activity. They trained an AI model to interpret these imagined speech signals, decoding sentences from a vocabulary of up to 125,000 words with as much as 74% accuracy. In some cases, the system even picked up unprompted inner thoughts, like numbers participants silently counted during a task. For people who want to use the new technology but don't always want their inner thoughts on full blast, the team added a password-controlled mechanism that prevented the BCI from decoding inner speech unless the participants thought of a password ('chitty chitty bang bang' in this case). The system recognized the password with more than 98% accuracy. While 74% accuracy is high, the current technology still makes a substantial amount of errors. But the researchers are hopeful that soon, more sensitive recording devices and better algorithms could boost their performance even more. 'The future of BCIs is bright,' Frank Willett, assistant professor in the department of neurosurgery at Stanford and the study's lead author, said in a statement. 'This work gives real hope that speech BCIs can one day restore communication that is as fluent, natural, and comfortable as conversational speech.'
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Washington Post
There's a reason India and the U.S. aren't better friends
Amit Seru is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Washington and New Delhi still can't seem to become true allies. The reasons lie in a half-century of misaligned interests — and unless both countries confront that past and stop repeating it, the future will belong to others.
