Agriculture is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Greenpeace's new report Cool Farming details the destructive practices resulting from industrial agriculture and presents workable solutions to help reduce its contribution to climate change. These practical changes will benefit the environment as well as farmers and consumers throughout the world. This report details for the first time all direct and indirect contribution agriculture has on climate change.

This report reviews the terrestrial Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), which are endorsed by the UNFCCC and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Details are provided on why these observations are needed to understand the causes of climate change, analyse the potential impacts, evaluate the adaptation options and enable characterization of extreme events such as floods, droughts and heat waves.

Several studies addressing the supply and demand for food in China suggest that the nation can largely meet its needs in the coming decades. However, these studies do not consider the effects of climate change. This paper examines whether near future expected changes in climate are likely to alter this picture. The authors analyze the effect of temperature and precipitation on net crop revenues using a cross section consisting of both rainfed and irrigated farms.

The paper begins by laying out the current state of global food insecurity and malnutrition, including magnitude, trends and future projections. The causes, consequences and costs of food insecurity and malnutrition are explored. Malnutrition is clearly a severe impediment to sustainable development and human security as it slows down economic growth and the achievement of equity. The paper briefly lays out a number of factors besides climate change, bioenergy and rising prices that will likely contribute to malnutrition in the future.

This paper begins by laying out the current state of global food insecurity and malnutrition, including magnitude, trends and future projections. It then explores the implications of climate change and rising bioenergy demand for nutrition. It also examines the direct nutrition effects of rising bioenergy demand, as well as its contribution to rising food prices. A chapter on policy implications provides a number of options for improving food security and nutrition, as well as for addressing the links between climate change and bioenergy demand on the one hand and nutrition on the other.

Climate change will affect water availability differently in Europe

This report shows that climate change is indeed already affecting Japan, for example its agriculture and fishing industry, its ecosystems and biodiversity, and its cultural heritage and identity. Changes range from symbolic examples like the early flowering of the iconic cherry trees to the life-threatening and cost-intensive impacts of sea-level rise and extreme weather events. An altering climate forces irreversible change on the residents of Japan, today and increasingly in the future according to the science synthesized for this report

Impacts of climate change include increasing water scarcity and flood risk, along with decline in water quality. This study explores which ecosystems will be most impacted and analyses how the effects of climate change act as causes of additional emissions, thereby reinforcing global warming in a positive feedback loop. In the study, ecologic contributed an assessment of potential changes in the water regime and their associated impact on land and soil resources. Furthermore, it provided insight into the interaction between deforestation, climate change and water availability.

This report warns that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow under the business-as-usual scenario as projected, leading to global temperature rise by 4-5