Reducing potential impacts of climate change on farmers

1. Reducing potential impacts of climate change on farmers Dr Jim Salinger, University of Auckland, NZ j.salinger@auckland.ac.nz Dr Zhai Panmao, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China pmzhai@cma.gov.cn

2. Outline • Climate trends • Climate scenarios • Future climate • Impacts on agriculture • Adaptation

3. Climate trends Results from three global datasets: NOAA (NCDC Dataset) , NASA (GISS dataset) and combined Hadley Centre and Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UK) (HadCRUT3 dataset)

4. Climate trends Land warming faster than ocean, Ocean heat content increasing all the way down... Oceans taken over 90% of total heating. Southern Ocean/Antarctic not warming, yet...

5. Climate trends

6. Climate trends

7. Climate trends Changes in drought, 1900 - 2002

8. Climate scenarios

9. Climate scenarios

10. Warming of about 0.2oC per decade for next two decades for a range of scenarios Climate Scenarios Higher emissions lead to more warming later in century. High scenario Medium scenario 3.9oC Low scenario 3.3oC Global surface warming from pre-industrial level oC 2.3oC Further warming of ~ 0.6oC for concentrations fixed in 2000 Adapted from IPCC, WG I 2007

11. Future climate

12. Future climate Precipitation

13. Future climate

14. Future Climate

15. Future climate The most damage in China is caused by drought leading to an annual loss reach to 30 billion kilograms, taking 60 percent of the gross loss.

16. Impacts on agriculture • Crop yield • Likely to increase at higher latitudes for global average temperature increases of 1 to 3°C, then decrease • At lower latitudes especially dry tropics likely to decrease • Global production • Likely to increase up to about 3°C, then decrease • Droughts and floods • Negative impacts, especially subsistence sectors at low latitudes

17. Impacts on agriculture In high latitude regions, if temperature increasing 1-3 ℃, the products of agriculture are predicted to raise slightly. In low latitude regions, especially in seasonal dry regions and tropical areas, temperature will be raising 1-2 ℃, the products of agriculture will also decline. Without adaptation, plant production to 2030 is likely to reduce 5-10%, especially for wheat, rice and corn.

18. Impacts on Agriculture (China) Positive impacts Negative impacts (main) With increased mean temperature over a suitable range, the north boundary of winter wheat obviously extended northward and westward in NE China; the planting area of late planting corn expanded. Agriculture loss caused by weather disaster, especially regional high temperature, drought and spring frost, will be aggravated. Stability of agriculture production decreased.

19. Impacts on agriculture

20. Impacts on agriculture Cereal prices and temperature change

21. Impacts on agriculture 0: not vulnerable; 1～5：vulnerability varies from low to high

25. Adaptation - China Actively plan to adjust agriculture structure, intensify management and improve agricultural infrastructure; new technology to strengthen the ability to cope with and adapt to negative impact of climate change; reduce losses and get potential benefits. Adjust composition and distribution of agricultural crops Develop modern biology and new technology Improve management measurements of agriculture Improve agricultural infrastructure Protect ecosystem environments

26. Adaptation - China Adjust crop varieties and distribution Analyzing future new structure of distribution of light, temperature, water source and agricultural weather disasters; improving varieties of crop breeds. 。 Design, foster and select breeds that can resist drought, flood and high temperature; adopt technology measurement to resist, guard against disaster and prevent plant diseases and insect pests that may be aggravating. Global warming and extension of growth period may be good for crop production poleward.Scientifically modify the planting schedule.

27. Adaptation - China Developing modern biology and new technology To decrease the negative impacts of climate on agriculture, selecting suitable cultivars is an important adaptive countermeasure. Necessarily strengthening development of high and new technology such as photosynthesis, biological nitrogen fixation, biological technology, resisting adversity, establishing agriculture and extractive agriculture to intensify the ability of agricultural product system to adapt climate change. Fostering adaptive and high quality new breeds is a very important method for agriculture to adaptive climate change.

28. Modifying regulation on agricultural management Adaptation - China The main method of improving the agricultural ecosystem’s ability of adapting climate change is to modify agricultural management strategies by efficiently utilizing water, preserving soil structure, enhancing irrigation and fertilization, prevention and protection against plant diseases and insect pests, and spreading ecology agricultural technology. Advancing the comprehensive technology of curing saline alkali soil and soil erosion to escalate low-middle yield fields to high yield fields slowly. At the same time, implement modern management on agriculture, decreasing agricultural production cost, increasing land utilization rate and output ratio, and investigating the extension of technology of precision cultivation.

29. Adaptation - China Improving agricultural infrastructure Continually strengthen capacity of agricultural ecosystems to meet emergency and resist disaster. The northern arid and semi-arid region tend to be drier. One important adaptive measure is that of improving soil and managing water, through strengthening basic construction of cropland, improving agricultural ecosystems, constructing high and stable yield croplands and continually appraise the adaptive capacity to climate change and the abilityy to resist and mitigate disaster. Developing modern agricultural product technology, and strengthening engineering construction for natural disaster prevention.

30. Adaptation - China Strengthening the protection on ecosystem environments Improving the protection, management, surveillance and regulation on natural ecosystem like forest and grassland. Strengthening management of deposit and substitute on ecosystem Constructing protective and continuous development system of breeding, management and biological diversity of forest, grassland and so on

31. Conclusions • In a world where the disparity of wealth, culture, or access to technology is very different from one region to another, environmental change will have different effects on different people • In certain regions climatic factors may be a dominant driver, in others they may just exacerbate a critical pre-existing socio-economic situation

32. Conclusions • In view of the long inertia of environmental and climate change, it will not be possible to stop current trends rapidly • Adaptation to change is thus the only viable strategy to avoid social hardship now and in the future • Insurance will be an essential strategy to enable agriculture to manage change • Raising awareness of vulnerable populations to negative impacts through education and outreach is another