Someone’s Going to Punch You for that Big Mac: Global Warming to Create ‘Food Battles’
Global warming, if not addressed with significant effort, will lead to battles over food and water within the next decade, warns World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim.
Comparing the global warming epidemic to the spread of HIV, Kim said that there has been a failure to replicate the 15-year-long effort of both scientists and activists in successfully treating HIV.
The Guardian reports: “Is there enough basic science research going into renewable energy? Not even close. Are there ways of taking discoveries made in universities and quickly moving them into industry? No. Are there ways of testing those innovations? Are there people thinking about scaling [up] those innovations?” Kim said, adding: “They [the climate change community] kept saying, ‘What do you mean a plan?’ I said a plan that’s equal to the challenge. A plan that will convince anyone who asks us that we’re really serious about climate change, and that we have a plan that can actually keep us at less than 2C warming. We still don’t have one.
“We’re trying to help and we find ourselves being more involved then I think anyone at the bank had predicted even a couple of years ago. We’ve got to put the plan together.”
According to Kim, the World Bank can help fight global warming in four areas: “finding a stable price for carbon; removing fuel subsidies; investing in cleaner cities; and developing climate-smart agriculture,” reports the Guardian. Water is also obviously a top concern, says Kim. “The water issue is critically related to climate change. People say that carbon is the currency of climate change. Water is the teeth. Fights over water and food are going to be the most significant direct impacts of climate change in the next five to 10 years. There’s just no question about it.”
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Image: Hindrik S
