Draft IPCC Report on Climate Change

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A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns about impacts of climate change on the Earth and its species.

About the Report

• The 4,000-page draft report is scheduled for release in 2022.
• It offers the most comprehensive rundown to date and predicts that up to 80 million more people than today will be at risk of hunger by 2050.
• The basis for human health is sustained by three pillars: the food, access to water, and shelter. All three pillars are totally vulnerable and about to collapse.
• The report offers a distressing vision of the decades to come: malnutrition, water insecurity and pestilence (fatal disease).
• It recommends that making changes in policies and choices right now can limit these consequences.
• Everyone at every stage has to treat the issue as a global issue to avoid massive displacement and migration.

Major Concerns Highlighted

• Malnutrition
  • It warns of the cascading impacts of crop failures, falling nutritional value of basic foods and soaring inflation.
  • If humans cannot get a handle on carbon emissions and rising temperatures, a child born today could be confronted with multiple climate-related health threats before turning 30.
  • It projects disruptions to the water cycle that will see rain-fed staple crops decline across sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Up to 40 per cent of rice-producing regions in India could become less suitable for farming the grain.
    • Global maize production has already declined 4 per cent since 1981 due to climate change and human-induced warming in West Africa has reduced millet and sorghum yields by up to 20 and 15 per cent respectively.
  • Even as rising temperatures affect the availability of key crops, nutritional value is declining.
    • The protein content of rice, wheat, barley and potatoes is expected to fall by between 6 and 14 per cent, putting close to 150 million more people at risk of protein deficiency.
  • Essential micronutrients are already lacking in many diets in poorer nations and will further decline as temperatures rise.
  • Extreme weather events will be more frequent and multiple crop failures will hit food production ever more regularly.
  • As climate change reduces yields and demand for biofuel crops and CO2-absorbing forests grows, food prices are projected to rise as much as a third in 2050.
    • It will bring an additional 183 million people in low-income households to the edge of chronic hunger.
  • Across Asia and Africa, 10 million more children than now will suffer from malnutrition and stunting by mid-century, despite greater socioeconomic development.
  • As with most climate impacts, the effects on human health will not be felt equally as the draft suggests that 80 percent of the population at risk of hunger live in Africa and Southeast Asia.
• Water Insecurity
  • Access to safe water will be affected by climate change.
    • Just over half the world’s population is already water insecure and climate impacts will undoubtedly make that worse.
  • Research looking at water supply, agriculture and rising sea levels shows that between 30 million and 140 million people will likely be internally displaced in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America by 2050.
  • Up to three quarters of heavily tapped groundwater supply (main source of potable water for 2.5 billion people) could also be disrupted by mid-century.
  • The rapid melting of mountain glaciers has already strongly affected the water cycle and can create or exacerbate tensions over water resources.
  • And while the economic cost of climate’s effect on water supply varies geographically, it is expected to shave half a percent off global GDP by 2050.
• Pestilence
  • The warming planet expands habitable zones for mosquitoes and other disease-carrying species.
  • Half the world’s population could be exposed to vector-borne pathogens such as Dengue, Yellow Fever and Zika virus by mid-century.
  • Risks posed by Malaria and Lyme disease are set to rise and child deaths from Diarrhoea are on track to increase until at least mid-century, despite greater socioeconomic development in high-incidence countries.
  • Climate change will increase the burden of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
  • Diseases associated with poor air quality and exposure to Ozone (O3), such as lung and heart conditions, will rise substantially.
  • There will also be increased risks of food and water-related contamination” by marine toxins.
  • As with most climate-related impacts, these diseases will impact the world’s most vulnerable, as already seen in the case of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
    • The report shows how the pandemic, while boosting international cooperation, has revealed many nations’ vulnerability to future shocks, including those made inevitable by climate change.
    • Covid-19 has made the fault lines in the global health systems extremely visible. The effects and shocks of climate change will strain health systems even more, for a much longer period.z

Source: TH