Speakers

Charlotte Janssens is postdoctoral researcher in Agricultural Economics at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of Leuven (KU Leuven). She is affiliated with the Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Charlotte Janssens has obtained her PhD in Bioscience Engineering from KU Leuven (2022). Her research agenda focuses on the linkages between agricultural trade, climate change, and food security on a regional and global scale. She specializes in advancing economic and interdisciplinary quantitative modelling tools for the analysis of future socioeconomic and climate change scenarios. 

Talk: The impact of agri-food trade in a changing climate: Mitigation, adaptation, and food security

Abstract: Global food systems face a dual challenge under a changing climate: they must contribute to the mitigation of climate change while adapting to its impacts. With variation among countries in the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity of food production, agri-food trade patterns may affect the global sum of food systems’ GHG emissions. Similarly, with variation among countries in the impacts of climate change, agri-food trade patterns may moderate impacts on food access, stability, and availability. Thus, important questions need to be addressed. Does agri-food trade have a net positive or negative impact on GHG emissions? Does it exacerbate or mitigate the impacts of climate change on food security? Disciplinary and interdisciplinary research investigates these questions using a broad range of methods, from empirical analyses with statistical models to foresight exercises with integrated assessment models. In this keynote we analyze available evidence, contrast the contribution of different methodological approaches, and highlight unresolved knowledge gaps at the interface of trade, climate change, and food security. The evidence on trade and GHG emissions is ambiguous: agri-food trade is associated with increased emissions from land use change, but it also has the potential to create net emission savings when emissions are priced. Future research is needed to investigate the real-world configurations of trade and mitigation policies that can avoid emission leakage and contribute to emission reduction. The evidence on climate change impacts shows that trade has buffered the impact of local climate shocks in the past and could importantly contribute to climate change adaptation in the future. Less is known about the impact of trade in relation to future climate shocks that are expected to be more intense, frequent, and widespread. Lastly, possible trade-offs and synergies between trade as a mitigation and adaptation mechanism remain unexplored.

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