IPCC report on climate change impacts: Food security, weather extremes

03/31/2014 - Today, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) released its landmark report on the impacts of climate change on societies and nature. Below the statements of the two co-chairs of the research domain "Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities" at the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research - they're not IPCC authors, yet their research is part of the published scientific findings incorporated in the report.

On this issue, Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarbe, meteorologist and co-chair of PIK's research domain "Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities":
"Extremes like heat waves or floods will increase if greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal and oil are not abated. We are changing the energy balance of our planet and thereby disturbing wind flows and precipitation patterns. This results in weather extremes – which have doubled in the last three decades, and the trend is still going up. These extremes will have considerable impacts for Europe and the USA, but the world’s poorest countries will be affected even more, as the report impressively underscores." 

Hermann Lotze-Campen, an agricultural economist and co-chair of PIK's research domain "Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities", comments:
"If no brake is put on climate change, it will have impacts on what will go on our plates - and what we've got to pay for it. Under global warming and without adaptation, yields will decrease more often than increase. This could drive up prices on the world agricultural market. Now this won't happen everywhere and all the time, and we're continuing to do research on these issues. But the risk is clear and present."