The climate change could force additional 100 million people worldwide to live in extreme poverty by 2030.

The climate change could force additional 100 million people worldwide to live in extreme poverty by 2030. This was stated by UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan at the concluding session of five-day workshop titled "Climate Changes Resilient Agriculture Systems", arranged by Centre for Advanced Studies in Agriculture and Food Security, University of Agriculture Faisalabad (CAS-UAF). He said that climatic changes are destroying crops and productive assets in the agricultural communities. He said the world temperatures will go up by 2 degrees centigrade in the coming decades due to climate changes. It will result in the loss of human live and livestock and reduction in the yields of crops. He said that more people are exposed to flooding, drought and diseases. He was of the view that the glaciers were melting rapidly causing floods while famine-like situation would emerge in the years to come. He urged the researchers, farming community, governments, industry and all the stakeholders to join hands to mitigate the increasing impact of climate changes. He said that disease spread during extreme weather events threaten to global poverty. The poor countries face the most risk as global warming worsens. CAS Chief of Party Prof Dr Bashir Ahmad said that UN World Climate Changes Conference in Paris will come up with the solutions and the techniques to curb the climate changes. He said that the increasing world temperature would pose the serious challenges for the mankind. He said that world population was increasing manifold and the changing climate changes were destroying the agricultural productivity. He said that the USAID CAS-AFS was meant for providing the innovative solutions to solve national and global challenges related to food, agriculture, and environment through excellence in education, research, outreach and policy support. Asian Productivity Organization Secretary General Mari Amano in his message, stressed upon the need of joint efforts to ensure sustainable agriculture amid climate changes. He said that by 2050, the world population would touch to 10 billion for which we have to provide the food. CAS Climate Change Chair Head Prof Dr Ashafq Ahmad Chatha said the rising temperature would further aggravate the situation. He said due to changing climate, the agriculture sector was facing the various challenges including the new diseases, flooding etc. The situation demands a climate change - resilient agriculture, livestock, poultry, fisheries and aquaculture system to be put on place. Dr Muhammad Saeed from Asian Productivity Organization said that under the current circumstances, the climate changes were the real threat to the lives of the people. He said that such conferences were the need of the hour to come up with the variable solution. Dr Kenen Peker from Turkey said that steps are afoot to work together for the climate resilient agriculture. He said that climate impacts were affecting agriculture the most which is the key sector in the developing countries. Dr Attachai Jintrawet gave the presentation about the seasonal rice yield forecast in Asia and the Pacific to handle climate variability. While Dr Gracia Axel from USA also said that the joint efforts on the part of governments, NGO, farming community, Industry and other stakeholders would pave the way for the sustainable agriculture. National Productivity Organization representative Rabia Jamil said that most of our population is associated with agriculture sector. And when agriculture is affected due to climate changes, it increases the poverty. So joint efforts are needed to fight the challenges.