More than half of global cropland areas could see a decline in the number of suitable crops under a warming scenario of 2C, new research finds.
The study, published in Nature Food, projects how climate change will modify the areas suited for growing 30 major crops under four scenarios, ranging from 1.5 to 4C of global warming.
It finds that under just 1.5C of warming, more than half of the studied crops would suffer from an overall loss of potential suitable cropland, compared to the current climate.
While warming would decrease crop diversity in the tropics, it would increase in areas far from the equator, “offering opportunities for climate change adaptation”, the authors write.
One scientist, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that expanding research beyond just staple crops is “essential to understand[ing] the full impact of climate change on agriculture”, adding that “it is exciting to see more work in this space”.
Declining ‘safe’ space for crops
Cultivating a diverse range of crops contributes to a more stable and diverse food supply.
For example, having a wide variety of crops allows farmers to select the crops that will be most resilient to extreme events, such as drought.
In order to understand how climate change will affect future potential crop diversity, the researchers identify the “safe climatic space” – or climate “niche” – for 30 major crops. This approach “maps the current climatic space of the major production areas of each crop”, based on annual rainfall, biotemperature and aridity.
(Biotemperature is the average of monthly average temperatures above 0C and below 30C, and is a method of considering both temperature and growing season.)
Using the “safe climatic space” approach, the authors calculate crop diversity by counting the number of crops that could be grown in a specific area in the future.
Then, the researchers project how these areas would change under the four future warming scenarios of 1.5C, 2C, 3C and 4C above pre-industrial levels, compared to the current climate (1990-2020).
The study finds that under a 1.5C warming scenario, more than half of the 30 crops analysed would see a net decrease in their global potential cropland area. The most affected crops are wheat, barley, soya beans, lentils and potatoes.
Beyond 2C warming, the declines in suitable areas for the 30 crops become more pronounced – in some cases approaching and passing 50%, the study notes.
In a 3C scenario, all of the 30 crops studied would have their suitable cropland area reduced, with the same set of crops most affected.
The chart below shows the percentage changes in global potential cropland area for all the crops under the four warming scenarios examined. Each colour represents a level of global warming.
The 30 crops were classified into five groups: cereals, fruits and vegetables, oil crops, pulses and starchy roots.
Dr Dale Rankine is an applied climate scientist at the University of the West Indies. The expert, not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the wide range of crops analysed in the research is “commendable” and that the findings are largely in line with previous work.
Dr José Clavijo Michelangeli, chief product officer at Praedictus Climate Solutions, an agricultural data and forecasting company, notes that most studies on agriculture and climate change only focus on the impacts to main staple crops, such as maize, wheat, rice and soya beans. Clavijo Michelangeli, who was also not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief:
“Studies expanding to other crops are essential to understand the full impact of climate change on agriculture and it is exciting to see more work in this space.”
He points out that although the findings are consistent with previous understanding of the impacts of climate change on cropping systems, the climate data used to define the “safe climatic spaces” may not “align” with the responses to temperature of the crops currently grown there. He tells Carbon Brief:
“This has the potential to over or underestimate the potential change in suitability of the crop in that region.”
Unequal impacts
The study also reveals that climate change impacts on crop production and diversity will vary across regions.
Regions near the equator, such as sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, would see the greatest declines in potential crop diversity – decreasing “on more than 70% of the cropland area if global warming exceeds 2C”, according to the study.
By contrast, global warming could increase the diversity of crops in other regions – such as North America, Europe, central Asia and Latin America. In these regions, crop diversity would increase – or see no change – on more than half of the cropland area under warming levels of up to 3C, the study says.
The map below shows the potential changes in crop diversity at 2C of warming. The inset charts show crop-diversity changes divided by regions and global warming levels, with the x-axis of the charts representing the four warming scenarios. Areas in brown represent places where crop diversity is projected to decrease, while those in blue are areas where crop diversity is projected to increase.
Adaptation opportunity
For areas that could see an increase in crop diversity, this creates “opportunities for climate change adaptation”, the authors say.
Clavijo Michelangeli says that the overall pattern of where the highest or lowest risks lie is in line with prior research. He adds:
“It is very likely that warming temperatures will not only increase diversification – which is in fact already happening – but also productivity of higher-latitude systems.
“The work is also very important in continuing to emphasise the need to do more research in tropical systems.”
Rankine warns that the benefits of increased crop production in temperate climates should not come at the expense of working to adapt agriculture in tropical climates. He argues that if future production centers on temperate countries, it could result in “a disinterest in tropical crops”.
He tells Carbon Brief that an uptick of extreme events in temperate areas in the future could endanger global food security:
“If [temperate regions] become the hub for food production, this could lead to global food shortages…This would amount to maladaptation, the opposite of diversity.”
The study calls to limit global warming to 2C “to avoid detrimental impacts on food production”, especially in the tropics, where many of the world’s most-vulnerable nations are located.
Sara Heikonen, the study’s lead author and a doctoral researcher at Finland’s Aalto University, says that any negative effect on agriculture in these regions would impact global food networks. Therefore, she says, “international collaboration and support for countries that need help with adaptation” will be critical for “developing new agricultural practices to adapt to these difficult conditions”.
The post Half of global croplands could see a drop in suitable crops at 2C of warming appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Half of global croplands could see a drop in suitable crops at 2C of warming
Scientists have vowed to keep working on the next flagship set of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), after a political row over the timeline for their release saw its latest session suspended on Friday evening without agreement.
During the weekend, government officials and scientists alike expressed disappointment over the inability to reach a compromise before some delegates from developing countries and small island states had to leave the week-long meeting in Ethiopia to catch flights home.
The disagreement – which has persisted since early 2024 – turns on whether the three key parts of the AR7 assessment should all be published before the conclusion of the UN’s next Global Stocktake of global climate action, which is due to be completed in late 2028.
The IPCC issued a statement after the close of the session, saying that “key agenda items” – the timelines for the three AR7 reports, as well as the IPCC budget – remain open and under discussion. It said the IPCC’s plenary session and its deliberations on the pending agenda “will resume at the earliest opportunity”, giving no further details of when.
IPCC Chair Jim Skea told delegates in closing remarks that recent months had been some of the most turbulent for the climate science panel and that, if there were stronger words than “profound disappointment” he would use them, according to a summary published by the Earth Negotiators Bulletin (ENB). IPCC discussions happen behind closed doors.
IPCC scientists remained committed
In an open letter, issued on Monday, a group of nearly 120 scientists – from a total of 664 AR7 authors – said they “stand committed to continue working to deliver the AR7 reports in a manner that is rigorous, timely and inclusive, in line with our mandate to be policy-relevant”.
“An assessment that arrives after the decisions it is meant to inform cannot serve its purpose,” they emphasised. “The second Global Stocktake in 2028 is such a decision point, and the world should not have to face it without the IPCCʼs latest assessment.”
Europe, small islands and the least developed countries, plus many Latin American and developed nations, want the IPCC to meet this deadline, arguing that the findings from the UN climate science body are irreplaceable in the UN climate policy-making process.
However, around a dozen developing countries plus Russia have argued that the reports should come later in order to allow for greater research input from the Global South – something that, in their view, would make the findings fairer. They also claim that a shorter timeline would put excessive pressure on experts.
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The most vocal of this group at last week’s meeting were India and Saudi Arabia, according to the ENB summary and a developed country diplomat. Critics see this push for a longer timeline as an excuse to deprive government decision-makers of the latest science and ease pressure on emerging economies to raise their ambition, particularly on cutting emissions.
Commenting on last week’s meeting, France’s ambassador for climate negotiations Benoît Faraco said a broad coalition of developed and developing countries from all five continents, “united in their support for science and the timeline proposed by scientists”, had withstood pressure “from a few countries” seeking to slow down the process of adopting the IPCC reports.
He added that France would not back down and would “continue to fight tirelessly for science, protect the integrity of information, and convince our partners that without the best available scientific data, we will be less effective in tackling climate change and protecting our populations”.
Inclusivity proposal stalled
In a bid to unlock a solution for the AR7 timeline, countries discussed ways to improve the inclusivity of the IPCC’s work. One option put on the table was for the IPCC to expand its funding for delegates from developing countries to attend some or all of its sessions from one to two participants, according to the ENB summary and a delegate speaking to Climate Home News.
That would increase the costs for the IPCC to complete AR7 by up to a quarter, according to an assessment shared by the secretariat. The panel’s budget is under severe strain and its officials have warned that, without additional voluntary contributions, it risks running out of money before it can deliver on this assessment cycle.
Climate Home News understands that some of the IPCC’s traditional donors – which mainly include European countries, Japan and Australia – indicated a willingness to support funding for an additional developing country participant. But without an agreement over the budget or the timeline for the reports, that option was ultimately not adopted.
‘Disappointed and worried’
The three reports are managed by working groups that collate and draw overall findings from the latest scientific studies and data on the physical effects of global warming around the world, how to adapt to it, and pathways for cutting planet-heating emissions in order to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.
Winston Chow, an urban climate professor at Singapore Management University who co-chairs Working Group II on adaptation, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he was “disappointed and worried” for the IPCC authors who have worked “extraordinarily hard” to assess the relevant climate science over the past two years.
He said he shared their concern that “the rigour, time and goodwill they’ve invested are now being put at risk by the Panel’s stalemate”.
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For Working Group II, a meeting for 250 experts writing that report is scheduled for January 2027, followed by the approval of a special report on cities and climate change in Singapore next March.
But because the IPCC’s budget has not been confirmed due to uncertainty about the AR7 schedule, travel support for those researchers is at risk, wrote Chow. “If they cannot participate, our assessments will lose vital expertise, perspectives and scientific breadth, and the collective effort of our authors will be undermined,” he warned.
Scientific work continues
Despite the political holdups, he – together with French climate scientist Robert Vautard, co-chair of Working Group 1 – agreed with IPCC head Skea who told the IPCC’s closing session on Friday: “The engine room of the IPCC is working, and it’s healthy.”
Vautard commented in a separate post on LinkedIn after it ended: “The boat is at full steam.” Working groups I and II are due to start revising the first drafts of their reports, while Working Group III on reducing emissions is finalising its first draft which will be out soon, he wrote.
“The most exciting two years of the cycle are ahead, for the authors. The momentum in the engine room is here and now. Trust the engine room!” he added.
The IPCC and some scientists report that progress has been made towards achieving an equitable balance of authors from the Global North and the Global South.
The group of researchers who signed the open letter on Monday noted that “inclusivity is at the heart of how we work”, with author teams bringing together experts from developed and developing countries with diverse backgrounds and at different stages of their careers.
Plea to overcome political differences
The signatories include several scientists from some of the countries opposed to the alignment of all IPCC reports with the Global Stocktake.
“We are committed to an assessment in which the knowledge, experience and priorities of every region are fully reflected, a commitment we share with the leadership of the IPCC.
Equity is built into how our assessment is being drafted,” they added.
They appealed to governments that make up the IPCC “to overcome their political differences and work together as we do as a global scientific community, so that we can deliver the IPCC reports the world needs to hear”.
In a statement published on Monday, IPCC chair Skea said reaching consensus on the schedule for the reports is “vital”. He added that the assessments provide authoritative scientific evidence to inform national climate policies, strengthen adaptation and resilience and support access to climate finance, as well as helping communicate the scale of the climate crisis and the urgency of efforts to tackle it.
The post IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock appeared first on Climate Home News.
IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.
Developing countries struggle with debt burden
For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.
This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes.
Comment: World Bank and IMF should lead the financial system in responding to the climate crisis
The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.
In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.
At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.
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