A new study which is being hailed as “the strongest evidence yet that climate change could have damaging consequences for food production and health worldwide” suggests that up to 500,000 adults could die in 2050 due to temperature-related changes to diet and bodyweight.
The half-million deaths would be due to reduced crop productivity, Dr. Marc Springmann of the Oxford Martin Program on the Future of Food at Oxford University in the UK and his colleagues reported in latest edition of the journal The Lancet. In a modeling study, the team estimated how many fatalities could be linked to climate-related agricultural changes in 155 countries.
Topping the list was China, with 230.64 estimated deaths per million people in 2050, followed by Vietnam (125.53 deaths per million people), Greece (123.66) and South Korea (118.53). The other regions with more than 100 estimated deaths per million people were Madagascar (105.23) and India (104.95). Italy, Romania, Albania and Myanmar rounded out the top 10, while the US was 66th on the list with an estimated 27.72 deaths per million people in 2050.
“Much research has looked at food security, but little has focused on the wider health effects of agricultural production,” Dr. Springmann said in a statement. “Changes in food availability and intake also affect dietary and weight-related risk factors such as low fruit and vegetable intake, high red meat consumption, and high bodyweight.”
Stricter regulations could reduce climate-related deaths by 71 percent
If climate change causes fruit and vegetable consumption to decrease and forces people to eat more red meat, it would likely increase the incidence of heart disease, stroke, and cancer, as well as the frequency of death due to those non-communicable diseases, the study authors said.
“Our results show that even modest reductions in the availability of food per person could lead to changes in the energy content and composition of diets, and these changes will have major consequences for health,” Dr. Springmann added. In fact, the research found that, left unchecked, climate changes caused by greenhouse gas emissions could lead to a one-third reduction in food availability within the next four decades.
Such drastic losses could lead to a 3.2 percent average reduction in food available to each person, equal to nearly 100 less kilocalories per day, as well as a 4.0 percent reduction in vegetable and fruit intake (14.9 grams per day) and a 0.7 percent reduction in red meat consumption (0.5 grams per day). Based on those numbers, the researchers predict that such changes could be responsible for approximately 529,000 extra deaths in 2050.
While climate change would also lead to a reduction in obesity, reducing the number of deaths due to the condition by about 260,000 worldwide in 2050, those benefits are offset by an equal number of deaths linked to being underweight or malnourished, the authors wrote. By cutting emissions, however, the number of climate related deaths could be reduced by at least 29 percent by possibly as much as 71 percent, based on the strength of new regulations.
“Climate change is likely to have a substantial negative impact on future mortality, even under optimistic scenarios. Adaptation efforts need to be scaled up rapidly,” said Dr. Springmann. “Public-health programs aimed at preventing and treating diet and weight-related risk factors, such as increasing fruit and vegetable intake, must be strengthened as a matter of priority to help mitigate climate-related health effects.”
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