A leaked United Nations report has disastrous predictions for how climate change will affect the world through the end of the century.
Viewed by The Independent in draft form prior to its upcoming release, the report predicts that climate change will substantially lower crop yields, resulting in malnutrition and unrest worldwide.
As median crop yields fall by around 2 percent each decade, malnutrition among children will rise by about a fifth, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change study.
If nothing changes, the number of undernourished children under the age of five will increase by 20-25 million globally, or by 17-22 percent, by 2050.
The report, which is scheduled to be unveiled at the end of this month, uses information from thousands of peer-reviewed studies and was compiled by hundreds of respected scientists, according to The Independent.
Mass migration is also a concern when a growing demand for food clashes with shrinking crop yields and rising sea levels drive people away from low-lying areas.
The study predicts that "hundreds of millions of people will be affected by coastal flooding and displaced due to land loss," The Independent reported. The land areas that are predicted to be hit the hardest are East Asia, South-east Asia and South Asia.
Besides reducing global food sources, climate change will negatively affect people's health as hotter temperatures result in more heat waves and fires.
People will also be competing for water as "freshwater-related risks of climate change increase significantly with increasing greenhouse gas emissions," the study said, as reported by The Independent.
According to a recent study published in Nature Climate Change, global warming of just 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit is expected to reduce yields of staple crops like rice and maize as soon as the 2030s, TIME reported.
"Our research shows that crop yields will be negatively affected by climate change much earlier than expected," Professor Andy Challinor of the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, lead author of the study, said in a press release.
"Furthermore, the impact of climate change on crops will vary both from year-to-year and from place-to-place--with the variability becoming greater as the weather becomes increasingly erratic."
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