The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the UN body tasked with assessing the latest climate science — issued its most dire warning yet about the threats posed by a rapidly changing climate. The way we grow, distribute, consume, and dispose of food around the world both fuels climate change and will suffer tremendously as the world warms over the coming years. The IPCC’s latest report highlights some of the critical ways that our food systems and the climate crisis interact, for good and bad.

From deadly floods in central China and Germany to historic water shortages in the Colorado River and unprecedented wildfires in Southern Europe, the summer of 2021 has once again highlighted the increasing severity of climate impacts around the world. The most recent IPCC report shines a light on the growing frequency of devastating extreme events that increasingly batter communities, including at times in the form of multiple overlapping catastrophes.

The IPCC report specifically points to the role of agriculture in a worsening climate as a major driver of the climate crisis, a highly vulnerable economic sector, and a potential solution. Here are three main takeaways from the landmark climate report, all of which have major implications for how we produce and consume food around the world:

1. Agricultural emissions are increasingly driving near-term global warming

2. Intensifying climate impacts will harm global food production

3. Sustainable agricultural practices can be critical climate solutions

The IPCC report has, once again, made clear that the window to avoid catastrophic climate impacts is closing rapidly. As leaders gear up for the next UN climate change conference in Glasgow (COP-26) in November, they are facing growing pressure to enhance climate ambition and develop credible national pathways to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Read the full article about the climate science report's take on food production by Ryan Hobert and Evelin Toth at United Nations Foundation.