Climate change threatens global food and water supply

Scientists from all over the world representing some of the most prestigious national academies of science from the countries of the G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission), Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa have issued a warning that is making people sit up and take note.
Water resources are most vulnerable along with food supplies, health, coastal settlements and some ecosystems

‘Food and water shortages are now a dangerous reality particularly in many developing countries,’ exclaimed Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society which is the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth. This bleak situation is only going to get worse if current trends are not changed.
‘In the coming years, they will be aggravated by rising populations, and climate change,’ Martin continued. ‘These threats must be properly assessed and solutions identified if we are to avoid costly mistakes from investing in technologies and infrastructure that do not take climate change into account.’ This is not the first time that the scientists from the Academies of Science for the G8+5 countries have raised their concerns over global warming. In 2005, they called on world leaders to limit the threat of climate change and advised on a course of action that would deal with its causes. Unfortunately, progress in reducing global greenhouse gas emission has been slow.

Since then, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reaffirmed that not only is climate change happening, but that anthropogenic warming is influencing many physical and biological systems. Water resources are most vulnerable along with food supplies, health, coastal settlements and some ecosystems, in particular, the arctic, tundra, alpine, and coral reef ecosystems. The most sensitive regions are most likely to include the Arctic, Africa, small islands and the densely populated Asian mega-deltas.

In their latest statement, they not only raise attention to the need for adaptation to climate change but also the need for concrete action to be undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They call for governments to agree, by 2009, to a timetable and funding, as well as formulating a coordinated plan for the construction of a significant number of carbon capture and storage demonstration plants.

European Research