The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth assessment report warns that 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species will be at risk of extinction if the rise in the global average temperature exceeds two to three degree celsius. Experts in the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) warn that loss in biodiversity will adversely affect the global climate. Land use changes, particularly deforestation in tropical regions, where forests are rich in bio-diversity, results in habitat changes and loss in bio-diversity, which in turn boosts greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, conservation of bio-diversity is crucial for mitigating climate change. It also becomes important to come up with adaptation strategies to combat climate change. One of the areas being to build a diverse genetic base in agriculture, which is  key to the development of various crop varieties resistant to floods, drought, saline conditions, diseases. IIED cautions that some forms of renewable energy technology can also lead to a loss in biodiversity. For instance, bio fuel plantations could involve the introduction of monoculture and clearing of high biodiversity areas.

 Serious food shortage predicted due to climate change   --

According to a study conducted by US researchers, climate change is likely to have more severe effects on agriculture than previously predicted, leading to half of the world’s population facing serious food shortage. The study reported that harvests of maize, rice and other staple crops could drop by up to 40 per cent by the end of the century because of higher temperatures during the growing season. Leading author David Battisti stated that predicted temperature stresses could reduce crop yields by as much as 20–30 per cent across the tropics and subtropics. Underscoring the need for investment in infrastructure, Battisti and co-author Roz Naylor called for major investments to develop crops that are tolerant to heat and heat-induced water stress, and irrigation systems suitable for diverse environments. 

Information key to climate change adaptation

A survey of 1,000 Ethiopian cereal crop farmers, carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in the Nile River basin, in Ethiopia, revealed that poor access to technology and weak informal networks are also factors that are  hampering farmers' ability to adapt to climate change. About half of the farmers said they were not adapting at all to changes in temperature and rainfall. They blamed a lack of information followed by shortages of labour, land and money. Kidane Georgis of the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture remarked that national and regional climate change research institutions were not interacting well with each other, which affected the speed and quality of information sharing.