Over 50% of Coffee-Producing Land at Risk of Shrinking Due to Climate Change

The Climate Crisis Threatens Coffee Production

A new report says that climate change will reduce the amount of land available for growing coffee by 54% by 2100, even if global temperatures are maintained in line with internationally agreed targets.

Already suffering

Coffee growers from Honduras to Ethiopia have confirmed they are already suffering from climate destabilization.

Impact on coffee production

British charity Christian Aid said that high temperatures and unpredictable conditions would reduce the amount of land available for growing coffee by 54.4%, even if global temperatures are limited to 1.5-2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Vulnerable countries

More than half of the coffee drunk in the UK comes from Brazil and Vietnam, two countries particularly vulnerable to climate change.

New temperature extremes

Vietnam recorded its highest ever temperature of 44.1 degrees Celsius (111.38 Fahrenheit) last week, while neighboring countries also saw new temperature extremes.

Rising temperatures and other climate impacts threaten growers

Rising temperatures, combined with irregular rainfall, disease, drought and landslides caused by anthropogenic climate change, threaten to reduce coffee production and bankrupt coffee growers.

Yadira Lemos, a coffee farmer in Honduras, explained: “As a coffee grower, it’s getting harder to produce. This is obviously due to climate change because we used to only grow coffee and it continues to produce on its own. In terms of climate change, we are seeing temperatures rise and it is difficult to predict the weather.”
Before we could tell if it was winter or summer and when we could plant. But not now. We cannot say that because it changes from year to year and it not easy to predict. Who would have predicted that we would have the storms and hurricanes that we had last year? Now you see that there is less rain. We are more vulnerable to this kind of change.”

Dire warning

Christian Aid has issued its dire warning in a new report, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee: The Climate Crisis and Your Coffee, which calls for “unfair” debt relief and bailouts to help farmers diversify their livelihoods.

Yetna Taklin, director of the charity in Ethiopia, said: “Africans make up 17% of the world’s population, but we only produce 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions that caused the climate crisis. Yet we are the ones who suffer the burden.” Crisis and consequences of climate change”.

UK government urged to act

“The UK government can do a lot, from using its power to persuade Western private creditors to write off the debt of the world’s poorest countries, to mobilizing the vital funding we need to offset the losses and damage our country has suffered from its climate problem,” she added.

Source: phys.org.

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