Mitigation could add 56 M hungry, ozone cuts offset 8 M
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- International research team used six global agroeconomic models to assess how climate‑mitigation policies affect global hunger risk by 2050.
- Baseline scenario (SSP2) predicts food availability will rise, cutting the global hunger‑risk population to about 330 million by 2050, a drop of roughly 390 million from 2020.
- 1.5 °C climate target scenario (SSP2–2.6) with carbon pricing raises commodity prices, leading to an estimated 56 million more people at risk of hunger compared with the baseline.
- Ozone reduction from mitigation measures boosts crop yields, offsetting about 8.4 million (≈15 %) of the additional hunger risk.
- Sub‑Saharan Africa and India account for roughly 56 % of the ozone‑driven offset benefit, reflecting their severe existing hunger levels.
- Study published in Nature Food emphasizes that climate policies must explicitly consider food‑security impacts to avoid unintended hunger increases.
Why it matters: Policymakers must weigh the trade‑off between emissions cuts and food security, as stricter mitigation could raise hunger for tens of millions by 2050 while ozone reductions provide modest relief, most of which benefits already vulnerable populations in Sub‑Saharan Africa and India.
