Climate change threatens our ability to ensure global food security, eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. In 2016, 31 percent of global emissions originating from human activity came from agrifood systems. This includes deforestation, livestock production, soil and nutrient management, and food loss and waste. The increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are trapping more heat in the atmosphere, which causes global warming.

Climate change has both direct and indirect impacts on agrifood systems due to shifting and unpredictable rainfall patterns and temperatures, a higher incidence of extreme weather events and disasters such as drought, floods, outbreaks of pests and disease and ocean acidification.

FAO is supporting countries to both mitigate climate change by reducing or preventing greenhouse gas emissions, and adapt to climate change. It does so by developing a wide range of knowledge products and programmes and projects on the ground.