A new study has matched future climate change “hotspots”

ILRI’s Polly Erickson presents the
results of her study, at a seminar at the World Agroforestry Centre

COPENHAGEN (3 JUNE 2011)—A new study has matched future climate change “hotspots” with regions already suffering chronic food problems to identify highly-vulnerable populations, chiefly in Africa and South Asia, but potentially in China and Latin America as well, where in fewer than 40 years, the prospect of shorter, hotter or drier growing seasons could imperil hundreds of millions of already-impoverished people.

The report, "Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity in the Global Tropics" (PDF) was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The work was undertaken by a team of scientists responding to an urgent need to focus climate change adaptation efforts on people and places where the potential for harsher growing conditions poses the gravest threat to food production and food security.

In the map here under, the red areas are food-insecure and intensively farmed regions that are highly exposed to a potential five percent or greater reduction in the length of the growing season. Source: CGIAR