A recent report by Oxfam International has added to the overwhelming evidence pointing toward human-driven climate change's contribution to food insecurity and economic devastation. Many people see climate change as a future problem that we can collectively resolve. However, the report indicates that we are already seeing climate systems unravel in developing nations. In the words of the organization's Executive Director Gabrielle Butcher: “climate change is no longer a ticking time bomb, it is exploding before our eyes”. Despite understanding the problem for decades now, nothing of substance has addressed the stark inequality that leaves vulnerable nations exposed to the worst impacts of climate change, which continue to worsen over time. Adding climate change to the deadly combination of intensifying conflict and political instability will amplify many food-related issues over time.
The Oxfam Report: Hunger in a Heating World
The report, released on 16th September 2022, concludes that acute food insecurity - defined as hunger that endangers the lives and livelihoods of populations - has more than doubled in ten hotspot regions; Somalia, Haiti, Djibouti, Kenya, Niger, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe. This hunger crisis is a consequence of more than climate change, as famines arise due to overlapping issues like conflict, economic sanctions, government corruption, foreign debt, etc… The recent COVID pandemic, inflation, price gouging by energy companies trying to recover lost profits, and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia have caused shocks to the global economy and are certainly significant contributors.
Over the past six years, all ten locations have experienced disasters associated with an unstable, changing climate, compounding pre-existing stresses. Invariably, these problems also feed into one another - more hunger will trigger more internal conflict and lead to even more hunger while warming continues to add stress. Vulnerable nations are trapped in a feedback loop as things stand.
Climate Injustice
The report highlights the sheer injustice of the situation in these nations by outlining their contributions to climate change. G20 countries emit 76% of all emissions, while the ten climate hotspots are responsible for an almost negligible 0.1% of global emissions. The suffering is inversely proportional to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and, by extension, responsibility for climate change.
This inequality is no new revelation, but this stat emphasises a striking injustice and how much failure has already occurred. The most vulnerable nations in the world are the least ready to withstand climate-related impacts and the least responsible. Also included in the report is data about the profits of oil and gas companies that are reaching record profits while actively undermining the implementation of solutions (through media influence, think tanks, and lobbying/campaign donations). This data underscores the sense of injustice even further as those most responsible for climate change enjoy record profits while misery unfolds around them.
As things currently are, the infrastructure and financial capability of nonprofits are unable to keep up with the increasing demand for aid as these climate disasters become more frequent and intense. In the ten nations, we can expect a ~40% rise in disasters between 2015 and 2030 if trends continue. We are in a bleak scenario where we are over-reliant on under-resourced NGOs to bail out the failures of politicians who continue to ignore the suffering.
Oxfam calls for urgent action ahead of the COP27 meeting regarding this stark inequality that is already creating food crises and is likely to worsen further. They outline a few key changes needed to reconcile some of the damage. These include:
Provide more aid to the nations covered in the report.
Guarantee financing to help impacted people adapt and cope better with future disasters.
Compensate countries for what they have already lost due to the climate crisis.
Achieve their emission reduction goals and prevent warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees by 2050.
These are perfectly reasonable suggestions and it’s criminal that they are yet to be part of geopolitical planning. This is the bare minimum and developed nations can afford to provide the aid and assist in adaptation. In a just society, Oxfam would not even need to be calling for such common sense changes and nonprofits would only be required to provide short-term relief during disasters.
Climate Change and Food Insecurity
The report goes into detail about how climate change impacts the ability of nations' to produce food, as summarised in table 2 on pg. 4 of the report. Food insecurity is affected in many ways but droughts, flooding, soil degradation, food chain disruptions, etc… are all collectively fuelling a global crisis.
There is also more than enough food to feed every single person, plus the technology and farming methods available to do this sustainably (although we are far from implementing it). So the fact that millions are still unable to eat testifies to arguably the worst failure of our species. And the fact that we have done nothing while climate change exacerbates an already desperate situation adds an entirely new layer of failure that the international community, especially the G8 nations needs to address.
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Extreme weather associated with climate change and slow onset events like sea-level rise or drying water sources (for drinking water and irrigation) are major drivers of food insecurity. The ten nations reported all fall within geographic locations where drought, cyclones, and these slow-onset events are already prevalent.
The ongoing East African drought, the worst in 40 years, is causing crop failures and killing livestock on a massive scale - water scarcity in Somalia is already driving conflict and 60% of its cereal production is below-average yields. Similarly, the Sahel region in Africa is experiencing frequent and more intense droughts, triggering crop deficits and conflict. Because of its location, the Sahel region is likely to warm 1.5 times more than the rest of the world on average in the coming decades, highlighting its extreme vulnerability.
Even one of the birthplaces of modern civilization, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is at risk as decreasing rainfall causes the river and groundwater systems to become depleted. Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and many nearby nations have experienced significant political and economic turmoil in recent decades, which is driving enormous amounts of hunger. Adding climate-related stresses (again) amplifies vulnerability in a location that is, like the Sahel, warming at a fast rate.
This report, in only 17 pages (excluding references), paints a bleak picture of the world and highlights an extraordinary failure of the international community to provide adequate support to nations where suffering has become a normalised part of day-to-day life. The grim reality that so many people face is completely avoidable and many solutions to food insecurity e.g. hybrid drought-resistant crops are already available. The money, however, is not there for poorer nations to access this much needed resource that is mostly controlled by multinationals. While wealthier nations enjoy the plundered wealth of others, poorer nations are left to fend for themselves from the problems they had no part in creating.
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