NATO Review: Climate change, food security and population growth could form the perfect storm. The global population is likely to rise from 7 billion this year to 9 billion by 2050. Yet, at the same time as having more mouths to feed, the world faces having less water and cultivable land. What will this mean for our security?
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Alexandra Dobra: Climate change is a global risk that affects far more than only the environment. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 75 percent of the people suffering from absolute poverty worldwide. This chronic crisis calls for a renewed discussion of food and water security.
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“If we look at the history of peacekeeping operations mandated by the Security Council, we find that 10 operations costing a total of US$35 billion dollars have been deployed to countries where natural resources have played a key role in the conflict.
This figure represents half of the total peacekeeping budget ever spent.”
- Achim Steiner, UN Environmental Programme Executive
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“Just as China is America’s banker, America could become China’s farmer.” ++ Due to population growth and desertification China has to increase imports for grain to avoid politically destabilizing price spikes. ++ “Chinese agriculture is losing irrigation water to cities and factories.” ++ If food prices rise, “Americans — who think cheap food is a birthright — are likely to
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Investment, not charity, is the key to ensuring food security. ++ Japan will make a new proposal to “promote responsible foreign investment in agriculture, in the face of so-called ‘land grabs’ - the growing trend for large-scale investment in farmland across the developing world” at the G8
Summit in Italy on Friday. ++ In the face of an unprecedented threat to food supply, concerned parties
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Both climate change and the increasingly perceptible scarcity of primary commodities are responsible for the current economic crisis. Endlessly rising energy and food prices have also played their role in destabilizing financial markets and eroding the spending power of national budgets. The goal of any form of crisis management should therefore be a unified infrastructure, through which the
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Food security is increasingly an issue in many parts of the developing world. ++ In countries that are net importers of food, e.g. Egypt or the Philippines, soaring prices lead to economic and political crises. ++ To help solve the problem the EU should increase its output: abandon restraints on production, review plans to switch land from food to biofuels, and increase expenditure on food
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Even without the food crisis, hundreds of millions do not have enough food. ++ We should demonstrate utmost concern and use this crisis as an opportunity to bring long overdue reforms and help vulnerable populations overcome long-existing food shortages. ++ Guaranteeing global food security requires solving structural problems, ending unfair trade practices, and tackling climate change
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Despite progress on climate change, there is an imminent threat on food security. ++ Decreased rainfalls and the rush to grow biofuels in an unsustainable manner is causing food prices to soar and putting the world at risk of a food crisis. ++ Expected growth of the population and increasing wealth in developing nations will exacerbate the problem by exerting added pressure on food and energy
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Farmers are among the few beneficiaries of skyrocketing global food prices. ++ Governmental subsidies for producing biofuels combined with droughts and a growing demand for animal feed account for the high prices. ++ Food and energy issues are beginning to collide. ++ Speculation accounts for some of the price escalation, but as arable land becomes scarcer, prices are likely to remain high.
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Jeffrey D. Sachs writes in the Scientific American that the coming decades may see the mass-migration of hundreds of millions of “environmental refugees” seeking better living conditions and above all available water. It will be important to keep an eye on at least four vulnerable climate zones:
- Coastal areas. The 10% of the global population living in these areas is highly vulnerable to
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