Feeding 10 billion people while preserving the planet: it is possible, says the group of experts of the UN on climate change (Giec), in its new report released Thursday, August 8 in Geneva. But to achieve this goal, it implies profound changes in land management, agricultural production and food.
This scientific analysis, the most comprehensive on the subject and summarized in about sixty pages, advocates in particular a profound change in land use and a change in our eating habits, such as a decrease in our consumption of meat. Otherwise, food security, health and biodiversity will be threatened.
"Delaying action could have irreversible effects on some ecosystems, with the long-term risk of leading to a significant increase in emissions (of greenhouse gases) that would accelerate global warming." experts.
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According to the report, the expansion of agriculture and deforestation has led to increased greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystem loss and a decline in biodiversity. More than 70% of the land surface and not covered by ice are exploited by man and about a quarter of this area is degraded by its activity.
Giec scientists emphasize the threat posed by desertification and the need to combat it by adopting resilient land use.
A report for COP-25
Between 2007 and 2016, agriculture, forestry and other land-use activities accounted for about 23% of net greenhouse gas emissions related to human activity. Adding the food processing industries, this share rises to 37%.
"It's a disastrous sequence: limited land, an expanding human population, all wrapped up in the suffocating cover of the climate emergency," said Dave Reay, a professor of carbon management at the University of California. Edinburgh.
The IPCC report released Thursday is part of preparations for the next climate change conference to be held in December in Chile. COP-25 is expected to lead to ways to implement the Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015.