Big Facts Cut Through the Climate Change Clutter

Diverse and sometimes contradictory facts about climate change swirled through the halls of the Qatar National Convention Centreduring the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) earlier this month. Keeping track of this information deluge is a challenge even to the most seasoned researchers.

That’s why the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS), a Burness client, launched in Doha a set of 30 definitive facts that negotiators can rely on to understand the link between climate change and agriculture—a hot topic at the negotiations this year.

Based on the latest and most authoritative research in the field, these “Big Facts”, presented on a website alongside original infographics and photos, touch on every aspect of the complex relationship among agriculture, food security and climate change—from undernourishment and population to forestry and fisheries.

But these facts aren’t just designed for negotiators. The information is relevant to anyone eager to know: “What do our food choices have to do with heat, hurricanes, floods, and droughts?”  They reveal, for example, that roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption—1.3 billion tons per year—gets lost or wasted globally. This not only wastes food—it contributes to climate change, too.

Check out the Big Facts website and tweet about the most surprising or worrying findings you come across with the hashtag #BigFacts.