The Impact of Climate Change and Bioenergy on Nutrition is a book that reads a little like a marketing brochure by the FAO. At a second glance this is not surprising, since most of the authors are employed by the FAO, which is also the co-publisher of this book. Overall, the book is rather thin – with respect to both dimensions and contents.
The book(let) consists of seven chapters. After a summary and an introduction, there are chapters on food insecurity and malnutrition, climate change and food security, nutrition and bioenergy and policies for improving nutrition. The book finishes with conclusions and recommendations.
It is very rare that the authors leave the very general level and become more concrete. The chapter on climate change, for example, mainly seems to be a summary of findings from IPCC AR4 and could be summarised as ‘climate change may affect nutrition in some regions’.
The book, therefore, is a well-researched summary suitable for readers who are interested in a general overview of the subject matter. The reader who is already familiar with the subject, on the other hand, will find very little that is novel and not contained within other similar overviews.