Climate impact on diet may kill 500,000

Changes in diet caused by climate change and poor crop productivity may be killing 500,000 people per year by 2050, a study has found.

The forecast is based on predictions of food availability in 155 countries. Average per-person fruit and vegetable consumption around the world may have fallen by 4% by 2050.

This would reduce by 99 the number of calories available per person per day, according to the assessment of the impact of climate change on diet composition and bodyweight.

Red-meat consumption is expected to have dropped by only 0.7%.

Dr Marco Springmann, from Oxford University, said: “We found that, in 2050, these changes could be responsible for around 529,000 extra deaths.

“We looked at the health effects of changes in agricultural production that are likely to result from climate change, and found that even modest reductions in the availability of food per person could lead to changes in the energy content and composition of diets, and these changes will have major consequences for health.”

The model used by the researchers showed that the negative effects of reduced fruit and vegetable intake far exceeded the positives of consuming less red meat — which prevented 29,000 deaths.

The biggest impact on fruit and vegetable consumption was likely to be felt in high-income countries, the researchers reported in The Lancet medical journal.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions was predicted to reduce the number of diet-related deaths by 29%, depending on the size of the cuts.

Dr Springmann added: “Climate change is likely to have a substantial negative impact on future mortality, even under optimistic scenarios.

“Adaptation efforts need to be scaled up rapidly.

“Public-health programmes aimed at preventing and treating diet- and weight-related risk factors, such as increasing fruit and vegetable intake, must be strengthened as a matter of priority to help mitigate climate-related health effects.”

Commenting on the findings, Dr Alistair Woodward, from the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, and Professor John Porter, from the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, wrote: “Restriction of our view of the consequences of climate change to what might happen in the next 30 to 40 years is understandable, in terms of conventional concerns with data quality and model stability, but might underestimate the size of future risks, and therefore undervalue present actions needed to mitigate and adapt.”

Low- and middle-income countries in the Western Pacific region and Southeast Asia are likely to be worst-affected, and almost three- quarters of all climate-related deaths are expected to occur in China and India.