The rise in carbon dioxide emissions has been increasing global temperatures for years, and some say it reflects climate change. In the past, climate change has led to disruptions in food availability by reducing access and quality. For instance, increases in temperatures raise the frequency of extreme weather events and reduce water availability. Previous research by the USDA on climate change argues that climate assessments need to be made in the context of socioeconomic scenarios. Thus, as a macroeconomic issue, farmers increase their agricultural production with greater financial support. Farmers with a greater number of acres will receive a higher income, and this lowers the implications of negative externalities like climate change on agricultural productivity. Are crop yields more likely to be affected in countries that encounter more frequent weather changes? The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of climate change on agricultural production across 60 countries. The extent of this effect varies by country and region. By using a cross-sectional dataset provided by the World Development Indicator Database, we can regress the crop production index on the level of CO2 emissions, percentage of land used for agricultural production, food production index, and gross domestic product per capita. In the regression results, holding control variables constant, and as the level of CO2 emissions increases, this approach fully captures adaptation as each farmer adapts to the climate they live in. However, we have chosen not to include year-to-year changes in temperature (measured in Celsius) and focus on the level of CO2 emission for each country in 2019. These limitations hamper our regression analysis as it does not factor in panel data to avoid errors that can be correlated with countries within the same period. Despite not using regressions on panel data, our report increases the empirical evidence that an increase in the level of CO2 emission reduces agricultural production in the short term.

Database: https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators

Kurukulasuriya, Pradeep & Rosenthal, Shane. "Climate Change and Agriculture: A Review of Impacts and Adaptations" The World Bank Environmental Department. June 2003.

Mendelsohn, Robert. "CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS" World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3350. June 2004.