By disrupting food production, climate change threatens “death from starvation on a scale that no living human today has ever witnessed,” said the head of an anti-hunger foundation during a panel discussion of malnutrition on Wednesday. Although agriculture was on the agenda at the recent UN climate conference, there is no global consensus on action, said another panelist.
Nearly one in 10 people worldwide suffer from hunger, and the numbers are sure to worsen due to rising food prices and warfare in Ukraine, said a UN report in July. “The world is moving in the wrong direction,” it said, with as many as 828 million people around the globe lacking enough food to lead a normal, active, and healthy life.
Malnutrition is already the leading killer of children, said William Moore, chief executive of the Eleanor Crook Foundation, whose goal is eradicating global malnutrition. “Increasingly now, nutrition is the way that climate change manifests itself in the bodies of the poorest women and children of the Earth.”
Moore spoke during a webcast discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit based in Washington.
Some researchers say that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a primary driver of global warming, will reduce the nutrient and protein levels in crops such as wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans. Climate change is also forecast to cause longer heat waves, change precipitation patterns, encourage the spread of weeds and pests, and lead to more floods and droughts.
“Changes in ozone, greenhouse gases, and climate change affect agricultural producers greatly because agriculture and fisheries depend on specific climate conditions. Temperature changes can cause habitat ranges and crop planting dates to shift, and droughts and floods due to climate change may hinder farming practices,” says the EPA.
There were 350 food- or agriculture-related events at the UN climate conference last month, said Jessica Colston of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. “So there’s this big movement and big kind of emphasis on food. But there still isn’t very much consensus on actual transformation and action that needs to happen.”
Globally, agriculture, forestry, and other land uses account for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Gillian Caldwell, chief climate adviser at USAID, said agriculture can play a large role in slowing climate change. “On the mitigation front, we want to reduce carbon emissions by 6 billion tonnes,” most of it through nature-based solutions such as the prevention of deforestation, she said. “We have a goal to catalyze $150 billion in public and private financing by 2030 for climate finance.”
Malnutrition during childhood has lifelong effects, said Rania Dagash-Kamara of UNICEF. “Cognitive development is stunted. It’s lower school performance that we see,” she said. “And lower completion rates, for that matter. Lower lifelong earnings.”
To watch a video of the CSIS discussion, click here.