Kaveh Zahedi speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday.
17:59 JST, May 16, 2024
Kaveh Zahedi, director of climate change, biodiversity and environment at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, emphasized the need for stronger action on climate change in food systems during an interview with The Japan News in Tokyo on Wednesday. He also expressed concern about increasing food insecurity due to climate change.
According to the FAO, approximately 700 million people worldwide still suffer from hunger. Citing “higher levels of food insecurity in the world,” Zahedi said the “agrifood system we have is not delivering what it needs.” He added that it would be difficult to reach zero hunger by 2030, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
On the climate and food system, he said that “agriculture is also on the front line of the impacts of climate change. It contributes to and is affected by climate change.”
Extreme weather events due to climate change have been observed worldwide, such as heat waves, heavy rainfall and drought. Zahedi pointed out the major impact food production has suffered from such extremes, as well as from an increase in pests and unpredictable weather patterns.
He predicted that if temperatures continue to rise at the current rate, 10% of agricultural land could be lost by 2050, putting further pressure on access to food.
On the other hand, agriculture is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 30% of the total, with global methane emissions mainly coming from livestock and rice fields.
As the world’s population increases, agriculture must “produce more with less,” Zahedi said. Sustainable agriculture, developed through investment and technology, is “a clear kind of solution path that we have to deal with food and climate at the same time.”
Zahedi also argued for the importance of the food sector in tackling climate change, saying that without efforts in agriculture it will not be possible to achieve the Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting the increase in average global temperature to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.
One of the biggest challenges to climate change action in the food sector is a lack of financing, Zahedi noted. An FAO analysis shows that the sector saw a decline in climate change financing in 2021.
He attributed the lack of funding to the inability to demonstrate that sustainable agriculture can deliver economic returns, unlike renewable energy, and also to the fact that climate change and agriculture used to be discussed as separate issues.
Zahedi said there is “a big role for Japan” in providing assistance and support with its agricultural technology and know-how, pointing to its technologies for producing rice with lower emissions and monitoring agricultural emissions, as well as Japan’s experience with carbon market mechanisms.
Zahedi was visiting Japan to attend an environmental meeting in Tokyo.
