Climate Change and Agriculture: Economic Impacts

Agriculture is arguably the most important sector of the economy that is highly dependent on climate. A large body of scientific data and models have been developed to predict the impacts of the contemporary and future climate. Since the first IPCC Assessment Report was published in 1990, substantial efforts have been directed toward understanding climate change impacts on agricultural systems. The resulting advances in our understanding of climate impacts have come from the collection of better data, the development of new methods and models, and the observation of actual changes in climate and its impacts. Such knowledge is critical as we contemplate the design of technologies and policies to mitigate climate change and facilitate adaptation to the changes that now appear inevitable in the next several decades and beyond. This article briefly summarizes some of the key findings from the research on agricultural impacts of climate change, based on the recent IPCC Assessment Reports published in 2001 and 2007, and other recent work such as the recent U.S. assessment published in 2002 and the Council for Science and Technology report in 2004. In the remainder of this article, I discuss the substantial uncertainties that remain about actual and potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and its economic consequences. The paper concludes with some observations about linkages from impacts to policy.