A/70/287 11. Increases in sea temperatures and the acidification of oceans owing t o rising levels of concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are also expected to have major effects on the fisheries sector (A/67/268). Warming oceans can lead to increased and more severe outbreaks of algal blooms, which can have a devastating impact on fish populations. Calcifying organisms are also threatened, which in turn reduces dependent fish populations. A consensus exists that climate change will have a negative impact on fisheries’ production, especially in developing countries in tropical areas. 7 Accessibility 12. Accessibility refers to both physical and economic access. Physical accessibility means that food should be accessible to all persons, including the physically vulnerable such as children, older persons and persons with a disability; economic accessibility means that food should be affordable without compromising other basic needs such as education, health care or housing. 13. Changes in food production and quality affect market prices and, in turn, price increases affect accessibility to food, especially for the poor. Socially vulnerable groups may have to alter their diet, substituting less nutritious and lower -quality food items and. as a result, diminishing dietary diversity owi ng to dependence on a few staple foods. 14. Sharp price increases for all major crops can be expected as a result of climate change accompanied by population growth, changing diets and increasing demand for non-food crops. Although it is difficult to predict food prices because of the many variables, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects with medium confidence that global food prices will rise substantially by 2050. 8 The Intergovernmental Panel predicts that low-income agricultural economies that are net food importers could experience significant losses in food access through a “double negative” effect of reduced domestic agricultural production and increased food prices on global markets. 9 Furthermore, sudden shocks in prices and currency values, as well as extreme weather events, can also create obstacles to food distribution, making it difficult to deploy adequate responses to an increasingly frequent number of emergencies. Adequacy 15. Adequacy requires that food satisfy dietary needs (factoring in a person’s age, living conditions, health, occupation, sex, etc.) and be safe for human consumption, free of adverse substances, culturally acceptable and nutritious. 16. In its Fifth Assessment Report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with high confidence that climate change will have a substantial negative impact on food production and food nutritional quality and on per capita calorie availability. Increased droughts can have severe detrimental impacts on nutrition and rising carbon dioxide emissions are causing harm to staple food crops, reducing their nutrient content, including of zinc (zinc deficiency is responsible for a large __________________ 7 8 9 15-10041 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report (2013-2014) (see note 2 above). Ibid. Ibid. 5/25