VOA标准英语2011--Ensuring Food Security, Tackling Climate Change

Ensuring Food Security, Tackling Climate Change

 

A high-level international panel has announced its recommendations for achieving food security while addressing the effects of climate change. The recommendations from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change released Wednesday come in advance of the U.N. climate change conference this month in Durban, South Africa.

The panel includes scientists from 13 countries who are experts in agriculture, climate, economics, trade, nutrition and ecology. It spent the past year analyzing¹ many climate studies – a year that included climbing food prices, humanitarian² disasters and political unrest -- all of which, it says, threaten food security. The panel says climate change will only make things worse.

“The current situation is just unacceptable. A large portion of the human population is food insecure and were vulnerable to food insecurity. A billion people or so go hungry and that is genuine poverty. And something on the order of another billion people don’t have appropriate nutrition. It’s seen and it’s arguably ironic³ that at the same time there [are] about a billion people or so who are suffering from chronic⁴ disease due to over consumption,” said Professor John Beddington, commission chair and Britain’s chief scientific advisor⁵.

Soaring commodity prices, he said, have pushed more people into poverty.

Smallholder agroforestry in Kenya is an example of sustainable intensification6, according to Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change report.

“We’ve seen in the last two or three years significant price spikes⁸, following on decades of declines in real food prices. And those spikes have really presented real problems, exacerbating⁹ poverty. Something of the order of a hundred million people went into poverty following the 2007/8 price spike⁷ – another 40 or so million went into poverty after the 2010/11 price spike,” he said.

Professor Beddington said the effects of climate change can already be seen but warns there’s more to come.

Lasting¹⁰ effects, growing needs

“The greenhouse gases already in our atmosphere will drive climate change for the next two or three decades. We’re going to see, and all models, and indeed all analyses, indicate that there’s already a trend that we’re going to see more extreme events -- high temperatures, droughts, floods -- and actually these are already becoming more frequent. And we can expect these more severe events leading to really difficult social, economic and ecologic consequences,” he said

The prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa is given as one example. Droughts in the region have become much more frequent.

The current world population stands at seven billion. It’s forecast to increase to nine billion by the year 2050. Commission member Megan Clarke, head of Australia’s national science agency, said a lot more food will be needed.

“The challenge that’s ahead of us globally is really quite hard even to comprehend because we must increase global food production by 2050 by some 30 to 80 percent and reduce our emissions¹² by half. So to put it another way, as my children grow older over the next 60 years, we’ll need to produce as much food [as] has ever been produced in human history. And at the same time, during the period, we’ll have to learn how to halve¹³ our emission¹¹ rate from agriculture. So this is a huge challenge,” she said.

There are many regions, she said, where the amount of food being produced is well below the amount that could be produced.

“In much of sub-Saharan Africa, we know that we can use really small doses of fertilizer at the base of individual plants and improve productivity. And we could also reduce the amount of fertilizer used. Similar, we know in China that there’s evidence that the current levels of high rates of fertilizer use can be reduced. And we can reduce nitrous oxide¹⁴ emissions and maintain our productivity,” she said.

Following the recent food supply and price crises, world leaders pledged to invest much more in agriculture, especially smallholder agriculture. While some investments have been made, many experts and agriculture-related agencies say a great deal more is needed.

Commission member Adrian Fernandez, head of Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology, said funding is an issue that cannot be ignored.

“This is one of the big topics that will be discussed in Durban. Financing – how can we mobilize much more resources to address the problems of climate change? -- in this case related to such an important issue, which is food security and agricultural production,” he said.

What to do?

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change has released seven recommendations. They include integrating food security and sustainable agriculture into both global and national policies; raising the level of agricultural investment; sustainably increasing agricultural production while reducing the environmental impact; and assisting vulnerable populations to adapt to climate change and food insecurity.

Other recommendations are “reshaping food access and consumption patterns” to ensure basic nutritional¹⁵ needs are met; reducing the amount of food lost or wasted in production; and establishing “comprehensive, shared and integrated information systems” to track changes in land use, food production and climate change.

Most scientists agree that global temperatures are rising and that man-made emissions are a big part of it. But some scientists disagree and say human contribution to climate change is much smaller.

The U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban, known as COP 17, will be held from November 29th through December 9th.

1 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

2 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

3 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

4 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

5 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

6 intensification   

n.激烈化，增强明暗度；加厚

参考例句：

• The intensification of the immunological response represents the body's natural defense. 增强免疫反应代表身体的自然保卫。 来自辞典例句
• Agriculture in the developing nations is not irreversibly committed, to a particular pattern of intensification. 发展中国家的农业并没有完全为某种集约化形式所束缚。 来自辞典例句

7 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

8 spikes   

n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划

参考例句：

• a row of iron spikes on a wall 墙头的一排尖铁
• There is a row of spikes on top of the prison wall to prevent the prisoners escaping. 监狱墙头装有一排尖钉，以防犯人逃跑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 exacerbating   

v.使恶化，使加重( exacerbate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• This pedagogical understretch is exacerbating social inequalities. 这种教学张力不足加重了社会不平等。 来自互联网
• High fertilizer prices are exacerbating the problem. 高涨的肥料价格更加加剧了问题的恶化。 来自互联网

10 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

11 emission   

n.发出物，散发物；发出，散发

参考例句：

• Rigorous measures will be taken to reduce the total pollutant emission.采取严格有力措施，降低污染物排放总量。
• Finally,the way to effectively control particulate emission is pointed out.最后，指出有效降低颗粒排放的方向。

12 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

13 halve   

vt.分成两半，平分；减少到一半

参考例句：

• Let's halve the project between our two teams.让我们两个队平均分担这项工程吧。
• I'll halve expenses with you.我要跟你平均分摊费用。

14 oxide   

n.氧化物

参考例句：

• Oxide is usually seen in our daily life.在我们的日常生活中氧化物很常见。
• How can you get rid of this oxide coating?你们该怎样除去这些氧化皮？

15 nutritional   

adj.营养的，滋养的

参考例句：

• A diet lacking in nutritional value will not keep a person healthy.缺乏营养价值的饮食不能维持人的健康。
• The labels on food products give a lot of information about their nutritional content.食品上的标签提供很多关于营养成分的信息。