GMO approvals under pressure: How climate shocks shape policy across nations

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332298 October 22, 2025 1 / 20 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Kong X (2025) GMO approvals under pressure: How climate shocks shape policy across nations. PLoS One 20(10): e0332298. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332298 Editor: Morufu Olalekan Raimi, Federal University Otuoke, NIGERIA Received: December 2, 2024 Accepted: August 28, 2025 Published: October 22, 2025 Copyright: © 2025 Xiangwen Kong . This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data availability statement: Data is public- ly available from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT, https://www.emdat.be) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA, https://www. isaaa.org/gmapprovaldatabase). Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. RESEARCH ARTICLE GMO approvals under pressure: How climate shocks shape policy across nations Xiangwen Kong * Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States of America * xzk0006@auburn.edu Abstract While GMO cultivation is often viewed as a strategy to buffer agriculture against climate change, its regulation remains controversial across countries. This study explores how climate shocks influence global patterns of genetically modified organ-

ism (GMO) approval. We develop a theoretical model and predict that climate shocks reduce the likelihood of GMO approvals in countries lacking a comparative advan- tage in GMO production. To test this, a local projection method is used to estimate the cumulative effects of climate shocks on approval activity. The results show that climate shocks tend to delay approvals, especially in countries with low GMO devel- opment capacity. These findings suggest that climate change may amplify regulatory inertia and intensify global policy divides on GMOs, raising concerns about the adapt- ability of global food systems under increasing environmental stress. 1. Introduction Climate shocks—such as droughts, heat waves, cold spells, floods, and storms— pose significant threats to agricultural production and food security by driving up prices and increasing the risk of hunger. A substantial body of literature has estab- lished a causal link between climate shocks and reductions in crop yields; for instance, without adaptation, climate change is projected to lower wheat yields in North America by 1.0–10.0% per degree of warming [1]. In response to these chal- lenges, genetically modified organism (GMO) technology has emerged as an import- ant adaptation strategy. Since its expansion in 1996, GMO cultivation has facilitated the development of climate-resilient crop varieties, and in 2023, global commercial cultivation of GMO crops spanned 206.3 million hectares across 27 countries [2]. Despite the potential benefits of GMOs in addressing climate change, regulatory

policies governing their adoption remain fragmented and politically sensitive. The United States has generally taken a more permissive approach, whereas many Euro- pean countries have implemented strict regulatory barriers. As early adopters and regulatory leaders, both regions have shaped global policy norms for GMO cultivation