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

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 420–421 (2020)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 30 April 2020

replying to M. N. Hayek et al. Nature Climate Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0766-4 (2020)

The core of the critique by Hayek at al.1 of our paper2 seems to be that by raising concerns about secondary impacts of emissions mitigation efforts, our study will hinder social and political efforts to reduce emissions. However, this is contrary to what we intend; to quote from the study: “in particular, it highlights the need for carefully designed mitigation policies for agriculture and land use, to ensure that progress towards climate stabilization and food security can be simultaneously achieved.” Nowhere in our paper do we suggest that delaying mitigation efforts is an option for the future.

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References

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

  2. Hasegawa, T. et al. Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 699–703 (2018).

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  3. Müller, C. & Robertson, R. D. Projecting future crop productivity for global economic modeling. Agric. Econ. 45, 37–50 (2014).

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  4. Tai, A. P. K., Martin, M. V. & Heald, C. L. Threat to future global food security from climate change and ozone air pollution. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 817–821 (2014).

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  5. Clarke, L. et al. in IPCC Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change Change (eds Edenhofer, O. et al.) Ch. 6 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014).

  6. Doelman, J. C., Stehfest, E., Tabeau, A. & van Meijl, H. Making the Paris Agreement climate targets consistent with food security objectives. Glob. Food Sec. 23, 93–103 (2019).

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Acknowledgements

T.H., S.F., K.T. and J.T. acknowledge support from the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund 2-2002 of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (grant no. 19K24387) and the Sumitomo Foundation. B.L.B. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement nos. 776479 (COACCH) and 821010 (CASCADES)).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan

    Tomoko Hasegawa

  2. International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Tomoko Hasegawa, Petr Havlík & Hugo Valin

  3. Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Japan

    Tomoko Hasegawa, Shinichiro Fujimori, Kiyoshi Takahashi & Jun’ya Takakura

  4. Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Nishikyo-ku, Japan

    Shinichiro Fujimori

  5. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Hermann Lotze-Campen & Christoph Müller

  6. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Jonathan C. Doelman, Elke Stehfest & Willem-Jan van Zeist

  7. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Seville, Spain

    Thomas Fellmann & Ignacio Pérez Domínguez

  8. Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA

    Page Kyle

  9. Wageningen Economic Research, Wageningen University and Research, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Jason F. L. Koopman, Andrzej Tabeau & Hans van Meijl

  10. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Hermann Lotze-Campen

  11. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington DC, DC, USA

    Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Timothy B. Sulser & Keith Wiebe

  12. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Daniel Mason-D’Croz

  13. E-Konzal Co. Ltd, Osaka, Japan

    Yuki Ochi

  14. Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Hans van Meijl

  15. Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Peter Witzke

Authors
  1. Tomoko Hasegawa
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  19. Jun’ya Takakura
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  20. Hans van Meijl
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  21. Willem-Jan van Zeist
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  22. Keith Wiebe
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  23. Peter Witzke
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Contributions

T.H. led the writing of this Matters Arising, and all authors contributed to the development and finalization of the text.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tomoko Hasegawa.

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Competing interests

The views expressed by the authors may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission or the other institutions involved.

Additional information

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.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Hasegawa, T., Fujimori, S., Havlík, P. et al. Reply to: An appeal to cost undermines food security risks of delayed mitigation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 420–421 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0767-3

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