Global heating 'likely to disrupt world's food supply before 1.5C temperature rise'

Major disruption to food supplies is likely well before temperatures rise by the 1.5C maximum target, the president of the UN's desertification conference has warned, as the impact of the climate crisis combine with water scarcity and poor farming practices to threaten global agriculture.

- Fiona Harvey

Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defence minister who led last year's UN Cop15 summit on desertification, said the effects of drought were taking hold more rapidly than expected.

"Climate change is a pandemic we need to fight quickly. See how fast the degradation of the climate is going-I think it's going faster than we predicted," he said. "Everyone is fixated on 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels] ... but some very bad things could happen, in terms of soil degradation, water scarcity and desertification, way before 1.5C."

The problems of rising temperatures, heatwaves and more intense droughts and floods, were endangering food security in many regions, Donwahi said. "[Look at] the effects of droughts on food security, the effects of droughts on migration of population, the effect of droughts on inflation. We could have an acceleration of negative effects, other than temperature," he said.