Reframing climate change as a food issue as the world's leading scientists did this week could provide an opportunity to mobilise people, experts say.
Academics and campaigners were already looking at food as a way to better connect with public on climate change when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its finding on declining crop yields.
The report warned: \"All aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change.\" It said negative impacts on yields would become more likely in the 2030s.
The stark language marked a departure from the last IPCC report in 2007 when the picture on food crops was more mixed, said Tim Gore, head of policy for food and climate change at Oxfam.
\"This is no longer a picture about poor farmers in some regions being hit by climate change. This is a picture about global agriculture being hit -- US, Russia, and Australia -- with global implications for food prices.\"
And that, he said, would make people sit up and take notice.
The definitive report arrives at a time when researchers are actively looking at whether talking about climate change through the prism of food would help break through US political deadlock.
\"The public connects with these issues through food better than through any other issue in a way that we haven't been able to mobilise people by just telling them to drive a hybrid or switch the light off,\" she said.
\"There is a way to talk about what you eat that will bring a conversation around climate change.\"