The world is likely to face major disruption to food supplies well before temperatures rise by the 1.5°C target, the president of the UN’s desertification conference said, as the effects of a climate crisis combined with water scarcity and poor farming practices threaten global agriculture.
Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defense minister who led last year’s UN COP15 summit on desertification, said that the effects of drought were taking hold more rapidly than expected.
“Climate change is a pandemic that we need to fight quickly. See how fast the degradation of the climate is going — I think it’s going even faster than we predicted,” he said. “Everyone is fixated on 1.5°C [above preindustrial levels], and it’s a very important target. But actually, some very bad things could happen, in terms of soil degradation, water scarcity and desertification, way before 1.5°C.”
Photo: Reuters
The problems of rising temperatures, heat waves and more intense droughts and floods, were endangering food security in many regions, Donwahi said.
Look at “the effects of droughts on food security, the effects of droughts on migration of population, the effect of droughts on inflation. We could have an acceleration of negative effects, other than temperature,” he said.
Poor farming practices are not helping, he added.
“The degradation of soil comes with bad habits, and the way we do our agriculture will lead to degradation of the soil. When the soil is affected, the yield is affected,” he said.
Donwahi said the world could not afford to ignore desertification.
“We need to solve all the problems together. Desertification and drought leads to climate change, leads to loss of biodiversity. And when you have climate change you have droughts, floods, storms,” he said.
“It’s not only the poor countries, everybody is in the same boat [on food security]. Climate change, droughts, storms, floods don’t know any boundaries, they don’t need a visa to go into a country,” he added.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS