Climate Facts: Food systems caused 80% of biodiversity loss, says UN

The complexities of climate change and its associated jargon can be difficult to understand.

TheCable’s quick climate facts will help demystify these concepts through easy-to-understand and straightforward explanations.

Here are some to keep at the tip of your fingers:

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  says the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 50 percent higher in 2019 than in 1750, far exceeding the natural changes at any time in at least the past 800,000 years.
• The organisation said there is a strong relationship between cumulative carbon dioxide emissions and the increase in global surface temperature.
• Higher temperatures affect the resources to produce food. Up to 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 and over 161 million more in 2019, according to the United Nations.
• The UN says systems used to produce, package and distribute food generate a third of greenhouse gas emissions.
• These food systems also cause up to 80 percent of biodiversity loss.