As of 2020, between 720 and 811 million people across the world were affected by hunger. Unfortunately, in 2023, the situation continues to worsen. Climate change plays a significant role in food insecurity. In several countries, climate change is putting pressure on already stressed food systems, affecting production, availability and transportation.
Climate Change Around the World – The Whole Picture
Climate change refers to the long-term changes in the average weather patterns that define the Earth’s local, regional, and global climates. Within these changes, scientists have observed multiple effects, such as global warming, which result from human activity starting in the 1950s and is exponentially increasing as years go by.
Effects of Climate Change
The effects of human-cause global warming are happening now. Severe weather damage, flooding, and bushfires are continuing to increase and intensify.
We are no longer waiting for these disasters to come. The effects are already noticeable in the loss of sea ice, melting glaciers and ice sheets, sea level rising, more intense heat waves, and other severe weather events. It may be hard to grasp the level of severity and alertness in which we should be responding because it can seem like just a bit of “extra water” and “extra warmth”, but the reality is far from this. Some changes, such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall, may be irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years, according to IPCC.
Food Security Around the World – The Whole Picture
Only six years ago, the world committed to the goal of ending hunger, food insecurity, and all forms of malnutrition by 2030. Food insecurity involves a lack of regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and a healthy life. When someone is facing food insecurity, they’ve most likely experienced hunger as they have run out of food and gone a day or more without eating.
Unfortunately, today’s reality is very different and we are no longer at that optimistic stage, or on track to achieve that goal. The world has not made significant progress towards achieving any of the two sustainable development goals set in this area: ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all people all year round, or eradicating all forms of malnutrition.
Who is Being Impacted the Most?
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people affected by hunger has significantly increased. According to a UN report in 2021, as many as 811 million people regularly go to bed feeling hungry. This is 10% of the world’s population. More than half of the world’s undernourished people live in Asia – around 418 million. Whereas Africa represents more than one-third of the world’s undernourished people, with 282 million experiencing hunger and accounting for more than double the proportion by population of any other region in the world.
The five regions with the highest number of hungry people as a proportion of population are:
- Middle Africa: 31.8%
- East Africa: 28.1%
- Western Africa: 18.7%
- Caribbean: 16.1%
- Southern Asia: 15.8%
Climate Change & Food Security
Climate change is one of the devastating results of how human activity has shown to be revering years of progress, and is now impacting food security across the globe. The rise of food commodity prices in 2021 were a major factor in pushing approximately 30 million additional people in low-income countries toward food insecurity.
Four out of the eight risks that climate change poses on the world’s population (according to the IPCC) have direct consequences for food security:
- Loss of rural livelihoods and income
- Loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, and livelihoods
- Loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, and livelihoods
- Food insecurity and breakdown of food systems
Who is Most Affected by Climate Impacts on Food Security?
The populations that will be mostly impacted by climate change in terms of food security are the most vulnerable ones, including people in arid and semi-arid areas, landlocked countries, and small island developing states. An example of this is in the Horn of Africa, where the hunger crisis is reaching catastrophic levels.
How is Climate Change Affecting Food Security?
The effect that climate change poses on food security is different depending on the population’s location. Nevertheless, the impact on food security and nutrition follows a cascade of effects starting at the direct footprint that climate change imposes on land degradation, atmospheric composition, temperature, sea level rise, and precipitation. All of these factors put pressure on the agro ecosystems, which affect aquatic species, cultivated plants, livestock and forests. At this point, the agricultural production and post-harvest already notice the difference in quality, quantity, and therefore price.
Food security levels depend on the availability, access, utilization, and stability of agricultural and other livelihoods, which are all impacted by quality, quantity, and price.
Food Security in Australia
Broadly speaking, the result of climate change around the world are increased food prices and reduced availability of food, which can lead to civil unrest, conflict, and migration.
In recent decades, Australia has experienced higher temperatures and lower winter rainfall, which has dramatically impacted food production and security. According to ABARES latest modelling, changes in seasonal conditions from 2001 to 2020 have reduced the annual average farm profits by 23%. This is even more meaningful knowing that more than 90% of the fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, milk and eggs sold in supermarkets are domestically produced.
Around 70% of the edible seafood that Australians consume is imported from the Indo-Pacific. These development partners are still predominantly rural, with most of their populations engaged in small-scale agriculture and fishing. The Indo-Pacific is one of the regions most exposed to climate change risks, with agriculture and fisheries being at the front line.
Considering the international and national providers, extreme climate events, which are more likely to happen every time, can directly disrupt and put pressure on food transport, market accessibility, and storage infrastructure.
What Organisations Are Doing & How You Can Help
The World Bank Group’s Climate Change Action Plan (2021-2025) is an integrated approach to address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change. The plan focuses on increasing the productivity of more and better food, enhancing resilience to reduce vulnerability to climate-related risks, and reducing emissions for each kilo of food produced.
Part of the National Adaptation Plan under the UNFCCC was to identify vulnerable regions, assess the impacts of climate change on food security, and prioritise adaptation measures for implementations to increase resilience. There are many other organisations across the world that include addressing this major challenge. This includes our member organisations, who are currently working on the ground to provide urgent life-saving food, clean water and shelter.
It may seem like a single person cannot solve this massive issue. However, the actions that we take on a daily basis, do matter. At the end of the day, our mostly profit-driven, ongoing actions are what got us here, and now it’s also our job to give back to our only habitat called earth. One way you can do this is by helping save lives in the Horn of Africa through donations. There have been four consecutive failed rainy seasons, crops and livestock are dying, and families are left with no food.
Find out more about the Emergency Action Alliance and what we do. If you have any questions or would like to chat with a member of our team, please contact us online.
