The Impact of Climate Change on Food Security
Climate change poses a significant and multifaceted threat to those suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Since the early 1990s, the frequency of climate-related disasters has doubled, leading to reduced yields of essential crops, escalating food prices, and decreased income levels. These adverse events disproportionately affect low-income individuals, compromising their access to food. Looking ahead, climate models predict a rise in average temperatures across most terrestrial and oceanic regions, with extreme heat events becoming more prevalent in densely populated areas, alongside heavier rainfall and an increasing likelihood of drought in certain regions. Such changes represent additional challenges to efforts aimed at reducing hunger. The Global Health Index takes into consideration rates of malnutrition, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality to highlight areas that urgently require action to combat hunger. Extreme climate events have both immediate and long-term effects on the livelihoods of vulnerable and impoverished communities, exacerbating the risks of food insecurity that may drive both internal and external migration. The current food system—which encompasses production, transportation, processing, packaging, storage, retail, consumption, and waste—serves the majority of the global population and sustains the livelihoods of over a billion individuals.
Facts Regarding the Effects of Climate Change on Food Security
The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, and wildfires, due to climate change, have a devastating impact on food security and livelihoods. Here are some key facts about the effects arising from climate change:
- Climate change is a compounding threat to rates of hunger and malnutrition.
- Countries facing high levels of hunger are often severely affected by climate change and have limited adaptive capacities.
- Climate change impacts food production, availability, accessibility, quality, utilization, and stability.
- Weather-related disasters are escalating, which diminishes the productivity of staple crops.
- The global food system contributes approximately one-third of greenhouse gas emissions; significant amounts of food are lost and wasted throughout the supply chain, exacerbating climate change without improving food security or nutrition.
- Climate change compounded by conflict leads to livelihood destruction, forced displacement, exacerbated inequalities, and undermined sustainable development.
The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture
Rising temperatures, water scarcity, and extreme events such as droughts and floods, alongside increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, are beginning to affect staple crops worldwide. In recent years, the production of maize and wheat has declined due to severe weather events, plant diseases, and the overall increase in water scarcity.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, unexpected yields of grain crops in semi-arid regions of the world (such as the Sahel in Africa) are at least 80% attributable to climate variability.
Rising sea levels present a different threat to food security in regions such as Bangladesh and Vietnam; saltwater intrusion is likely to inundate coastal farmland, which will jeopardize rice production.