Perry World House’s ‘Feeding a Climate-Changed World’ conference brought together climate experts to discuss democracy, human rights, and the geopolitics of food security.
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With research agendas on climate change, democracy, human rights, and security, Perry World House convened a high-level workshop on March 18, to develop policy innovations and research solutions to this multidisciplinary dilemma. Featuring policymakers, practitioners and academics from world-renowned institutions and representing a variety of countries and contexts, the discussions explored solutions to critical questions such as: how to produce more food with less environmental impact; whether a diet can be healthy for both planet and people; and how geopolitics might shape food security in a warmer, more urban, and populated world.
The conference discourse highlighted how needs might change in the coming decades as well as many innovations, for instance in plant breeding, livestock management, and regenerative farming that will help meet food demand. Participants also took a deep dive into the nexus of climate change, urbanization, and nutrition, discussing how diets are changing and what policies various countries are putting in place to assure nutritional and overall food security.
The global food system, including the conversion of land used for agriculture, accounts for 34% of greenhouse gas emissions, making it a significant driver of climate change. Paradoxically, this system is also highly vulnerable to global warming. This is because rising temperatures disturb factors like hydrological cycles, meteorological phenomena, and soil health that are critical to food production. In the decades to come, policymakers will find themselves in a climate-driven conundrum to be further complicated by the other mega trends of rapid urbanization and population growth. By 2050, the world is expected to host an additional two billion people, with seven out of every ten likely to live in cities.
Andrew Hoffman, Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) delivered the conference’s opening keynote. Perry World House distinguished visiting fellow H.E. Khadeeja Naseem, senior adviser of the Climate Emergency Collaboration Group and former Maldives’ minister of state for climate change, provided an overview of how climate change impacts food security. Zhengxia Dou, professor of agricultural systems at the Penn Vet spoke on a panel on mitigating the effects of food production and consumption on climate change. H.E. Jose Luis Chicoma, program chair of The Future of Food: Power and Biodiversity at The New Institute and former minister of production of Peru discussed how urbanization and global warming shape dietary patterns and nutrition around the world. The conference wrapped with a panel on the geopolitics of food security and climate change.
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