Effects of climate change on food production could lead to 500,000 deaths!

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Climate change is an ever-growing concern in the world. Melting glaciers and ice sheets, rising pollution levels, deforestation, etc., all contribute or are reflective of the very fact that global warming and/or climate change is, after all, very much real.

Last year saw the leaders of the world come together in Paris for the summit on climate change, where, various proposals were agreed upon to cut down on each country's respective carbon footprint.

However, the effects of climate change are not just limited to the melting of glaciers. They reach out far and wide and even affect food production. So much so, that the effects of climate change on food production could lead to the deaths of more than half a million adults in 2050, according to researchers' estimates.

Published in The Lancet, the research also said that three-quarters of those deaths are likely to occur in China and India.

According to a report in UPI, by 2050, lower levels of fruit and vegetable consumption could cause twice as many deaths as poor nutrition, the study based on computer modeling found.

As per UPI, This is the strongest evidence yet of the devastation climate change could have on food production and health worldwide, study leader Marco Springmann and colleagues said in a journal news release. The team predicted the impact in 155 countries.

"Much research has looked at food security, but little has focused on the wider health effects of agricultural production," said Springmann, quoted by UPI.

These changes can lead to increase in the risk of diseases and conditions such as heart disease, stroke and cancer and death from those diseases.

Furthermore, the changes in food availability would impact China and India the hardest. The researchers estimated the changes would result in 248,000 deaths in China and 136,000 in India.

The study authors also looked at the opposite scenario. A future without climate change would increase food availability and consumption, and prevent 1.9 million deaths, the researchers said.