Ozone pollution reduction partially offsets the negative impact of climate change mitigation efforts on global hunger

Xia, S., Hasegawa, T., Jansakoo, T., Mason-D’Croz, D., Tsuchiya, K., Fujimori, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7897-1796, Chepeliev, M., Kozicka, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2323-3689, Mishra, A., van Zeist, W.-J., Zhao, X., de Lange, T., Diniz Oliveira, T., Doelman, J.C., Gibson, M., Havlík, P., Herrero, M., Kumar, I., Ochi, Y., Sulser, T.B., et al. (2026). Ozone pollution reduction partially offsets the negative impact of climate change mitigation efforts on global hunger. Nature Food 10.1038/s43016-026-01322-3. (In Press)

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Abstract

Studies warning of the potential negative effects of climate mitigation on food security through the competing use of land for bioenergy and afforestation have overlooked the impact of reduced ozone and its potential enhancement of crop yields. Here we use six global agro-economic models to compare the impacts of climate change with climate mitigation policy and ozone reduction on agriculture. We find that ozone reduction could reduce the negative impact of a 1.5 °C-consistent climate change mitigation policy on global hunger by 15% in 2050. Sub-Saharan Africa and India, where hunger is most severe, account for 56% of this global reduction. Our findings indicate that the negative effects of climate mitigation on global hunger could be partially offset by the ozone reduction impact.

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