The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Thursday that there will be an exponential increase in hunger fuelled by the climate crisis unless urgent global action to help communities adapt to climatic shocks and stresses is taken.
A WFP analysis shows that a 2°C rise in average the global temperature from pre-industrial levels, which the world risks reaching if action is not taken, will see a staggering 189 million additional people in the grips of hunger. Vulnerable communities, a vast majority of whom rely on agriculture, fishing, and livestock and, who contribute the least to the climate crisis, will continue to bear the brunt of the impacts with limited means to cushion the blow, the Rome-based UN agency said before World Food Day on October 15.
"Large swathes of the globe, from Madagascar to Honduras to Bangladesh, are in the throes of a climate crisis that is now a daily reality for millions. The climate crisis is fuelling a food crisis," WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement.
Tens of thousands of lives are at risk in southern Madagascar, one of the potentially many places in the world currently where famine-like conditions have been driven by climate change, the WFP said.
Consecutive droughts have pushed nearly 1.1 million people into severe hunger.
Nearly 14,000 of them are in famine-like conditions and this number is expected to double by the end of the year, it said.
When coupled with conflict, the climate crisis exacerbates existing vulnerabilities.
In Afghanistan, severe drought tied to conflict and economic hardship has left a third of the population reeling with hunger, according to the WFP.
"If this is the new normal, we can't keep lurching from disaster to disaster. We need to go beyond just picking up the pieces after the crisis hits, and instead manage climate risks so they no longer have the power to destroy the food security of vulnerable communities," added Beasley.
"Conflict is plunging millions into hunger today, but the climate crisis has the potential to dwarf conflict as the main cause of hunger tomorrow.
"We urgently need to invest in early warning systems and climate adaptation and resilience programmes to avert this looming humanitarian disaster".
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