Starvation: A Negative Externality of Global Warming Policy

Some analysts have been worried that the externalities of burning fossil fuels now will starve poor people in the future. For example, a September, 2007 report from the Center for Global Development predicted:

World agriculture faces a serious decline within this century due to global warming unless emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are substantially reduced from their rising path, and developing countries will suffer much steeper declines than high-income countries, according to a new study by a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Peterson Institute.

Developing countries, many of which have average temperatures that are already near or above crop tolerance levels, are predicted to suffer an average 10 to 25 percent decline in agricultural productivity by the 2080s….

But it turns out that global warming policies have externalities too. Biofuel mandates aimed at reducing future global warming are helping to starve people now, not 70 years from now.