Climate Change Risks for Agriculture, Health, and Nutrition

The stability of global, national, and local food systems is at risk under climate change. Climate change affects food production, availability of and access to food, food quality, food safety, diet quality, and thus people’s nutrition and health. Climate change may further slow progress towards a world with food security for all. Climate change impacts will exacerbate food shortages, especially in areas that already show a high prevalence of food insecurity. Climate change will affect good nutrition through complex indirect pathways, such as income shocks when droughts or floods occur, loss of employment opportunities, health effects resulting from air pollution and changed water systems. A conceptual framework for a food systems analysis is presented here, and the linkages within the system and expected changes among them are elaborated—some on a global scale and some on a micro scale. Policy actions are proposed and research gaps are identified.