Co-benefits of air pollution regulations and climate change mitigation for food security

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K24387
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 1101:Environmental analyses and evaluation, environmental conservation measure and related fields
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: Hasegawa Tomoko 立命館大学, 理工学部, 准教授 (60615524)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-08-30 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 気候変動 / 対流圏オゾン / 共便益

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated the impact of climate change and mitigation measures on crop yield, food consumption and population at risk of hunger through changes in tropospheric ozone concentration at the global level. As a result, we found that the population at the risk of hunger increases by 9.8 million due to the effects of climate change, while it decreases by 5.5 million due to reduced ozone concentration, resulting in a total increase of 3.8 million under a stringent climate change mitigation scenario compared to a baseline scenario with no climate change and no climate mitigation. At regional scale, in the regions currently facing at risk of hunger such as India and other South Asian countries , the reduction in ozone concentration had a significant effect on the increase in food consumption and the decrease in the risk of hunger. This benefit could be an incentive to introduce climate change mitigation measures in developing regions.

Free Research Field

環境システム工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまで気候変動と気候変動緩和策が作物収量変化を通じて食料消費や飢餓リスク人口に及ぼす影響は評価されてきたが、気候緩和策の効果のみを考慮し、大気汚染軽減を通じた副次的な効果は考慮されていなかった。本研究ではそれを明らかにした。今回得られた結果、すなわち、気候変動対策がオゾン濃度軽減を通じて食料消費を増やし飢餓リスクを減らすという気候変動対策の副次的便益を示せたことは、特に途上地域での気候変動対策の導入においてインセンティブになりえるため、本知見の社会的意義は高いと言える。