Climate impact predicted to cause 500,000 extra deaths in 2050

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Climate change could cause significant changes to global diets, leading to more than half a million extra deaths in 2050 from illnesses such as stroke, cancer and heart disease, experts said on Wednesday. As extreme weather such as floods and heat waves wreaks havoc with harvests and crop yields, estimated increases in food availability could be cut by a third by 2050, according to the experts' study published in The Lancet medical journal. This would lead to a reduction of 99 calories available per person per day, the assessment of the impact of climate change on diet composition and bodyweight found.