How the UN's anti-biotech policies worsen global warming

Abstract

Numerous United Nations policies and programmes inhibit the development and use of important tools that could help both to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to conserve water, especially in poorer regions of the world. A prime example is the UN's unscientific, anti-innovative approach to regulating recombinant DNA-modified (or gene-spliced, or ‘genetically modified (GM)’) plants that could both lessen agriculture's ‘carbon footprint’ and help farmers adapt to droughts and water shortages (a predicted outcome of warming). Like much of what transpires within UN agencies and programmes, the regulation of GM organisms and food derived from them defies scientific consensus and common sense. The result is vastly inflated research and development costs, less innovation, and diminished exploitation of superior techniques and products that could promote adaptation to environmental and public health challenges.