Potential impacts of pandemics on global warming, agricultural production, and biodiversity loss

Abstract

The rising frequency of infectious diseases under climate change poses an emerging threat to environmental and agricultural sustainability by consuming large quantities of materials. The demand for crops to produce personal protective equipment (PPE) competes for land and fertilizers, leads to cropland expansion, and accelerates climate change, but the ecological impacts remain unclear. Here we explore the impacts of pandemics on global warming, agricultural production, and biodiversity loss in an Earth system model by developing relationships between consumption of PPE and the rate of infection during COVID-19. Meeting the demand for PPE would increase production of cotton lint, corn, and natural rubber, which accelerates global warming by 0.2°C with 1.8% additional species losses by 2100. Our results suggest that the risks of public health, food security, climate change, and ecological integrity have been connected to each other, which should be considered when predicting the impacts of future pandemics.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Xiong (熊元康), Yuankang Wang (王戎), Rong Gasser, Thomas Ciais, Philippe Peñuelas, Josep Sardans, Jordi Clark, James H. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5860-2480 Cao (曹军骥), Junji Xing (邢晓帆), Xiaofan Xu (徐思清), Siqing Deng (邓艺菲), Yifei Wang (王琳), Lin Chen (陈建民), Jianmin Tang (汤绪), Xu Zhang (张人禾), Renhe
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	Funding Information: This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 42341205, no. 41877506) and the National Key R&D Program of China (no. 2022YFF0802504). R.W. R.Z. X.T. and J.C. acknowledge support from the Shanghai International Science and Technology Partnership Project (21230780200). P.C. acknowledges support from the ANR CLAND Convergence Institute 16-CONV-0003. J.P. and J.S. acknowledge financial support from the Catalan Government grant AGAUR-2020PANDE00117. T.G. acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation program (RESCUE, grant no. 101056939) and Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ESM2025, grant no. 101003536). X.X. acknowledges support from the Cultivation Project of Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan in Shanghai 2023 (Yangfan: 23YF1401500) and the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no.42307128). R.W. led the project, conceived the research, and designed the study. Y.X. X.X. and Y.D. compiled data, performed the research, and prepared graphs. T.G. and S.X. provided tools simulating climate change. P.C. J.P. J.S. J.H.C. X.T. and R.Z. provided tools analyzing the impact of climate change on crop yields. P.C. J.P. J.S. L.W. and J. Chen provided tools analyzing the ecological consequence of climate change and LUC. T.G. and S.X. provided tools analyzing the implications for risk interconnectivity and governance. J. Cao provided tools analyzing the impact of green production. R.W. wrote the first draft of the paper and supplemental information. All authors critically revised successive drafts of the paper and approved the final version. The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)
Keywords:	adaptation strategy,climate change,COVID-19,ecological integrity,food security,mitigation strategy,pandemics
Dates:	Accepted: 21 February 2024 Published (online): 15 March 2024 Published: 19 April 2024
Institution:	The University of York
Academic Units:	The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Chemistry (York)
Depositing User:	Pure (York)
Date Deposited:	01 May 2024 08:10
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2025 23:40
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.02.012
Status:	Published
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1016/j.oneear.2024.02.012
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:212143

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Potential impacts of pandemics on global warming, agricultural production, and biodiversity loss

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