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  • Matters Arising
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An appeal to cost undermines food security risks of delayed mitigation

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 418–419 (2020)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 30 April 2020

The Original Article was published on 30 July 2018

arising from T. Hasegawa et al. Nature Climate Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0230-x (2018)

In a recent analysis, Hasegawa et al.1 found that the cost burden of a global carbon tax outweighs the benefits of averted climate change on food production, stating “a robust finding is that by 2050, stringent climate mitigation policy, if implemented evenly across all sectors and regions, would have a greater negative impact on global hunger and food consumption than the direct impacts of climate change”. However, the authors based this finding on an inappropriate use of model ensembles to evaluate socio-environmental outcomes. Their conclusions are based on (1) models that are unable represent the full scope and magnitude of risks that climate change poses directly to agriculture and (2) unrealistic economic assumptions affecting food production.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Jacquet for her helpful input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Animal Law and Policy Program, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Matthew N. Hayek

  2. Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Matthew N. Hayek, Sonali P. McDermid & Dale W. Jamieson

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  1. Matthew N. Hayek
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  2. Sonali P. McDermid
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  3. Dale W. Jamieson
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Contributions

S.P.M., D.W.J. and M.N.H developed the idea for this manuscript. M.N.H. and S.P.DM. wrote the majority of the manuscript. All authors substantially contributed ideas, and revised and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthew N. Hayek.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Chengcheng Fei and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Hayek, M.N., McDermid, S.P. & Jamieson, D.W. An appeal to cost undermines food security risks of delayed mitigation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 418–419 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0766-4

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