Dissecting the vital role of dietary changes in food security assessment under climate change

National and global food security depend on both supply and demand, yet the vast majority of studies on the impact of climate change on food security have focused somewhat myopically on the supply side. Here, we assess planetary implications of the changing climate for food supply, concurrently considering implications of shifts in dietary preferences on food security. From 1990 to 2018, climate change detrimentally impacted on the food production of 92% of nations assessed. During this time, demanding decreased at a greater rate than food supply in 28% of countries; food security for 35% of the global population was unperturbed by climate change. On the other hand, 2% of the global population did not benefit from changing food production, due to dietary preferences towards mass and/or abrupt transitions in dietary preferences are unlikely.

Jin Zhao, Zhentao Zhang, Chuang Zhao, Zhijuan Liu, Erjing Guo, Tianyi Zhang, Ji Chen, Jorgen Eivind Olesen, Ke Liu, Matthew Tom Harrison, Yumei Zhang, Xiaolong Feng, Ting Meng, Qing Ye, Shenggen Fan, Xiaoguang Yang