Climate change threatens food security

Human activities on earth have been a main cause for the world’s recent unusual changes in climate. Extreme changes in climate have a profound effect on biodiversity, agricultural production, food security, health and economy. 

What is climate change?

According to the United Nations, climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. However, burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

What is food security?

The FAO defines food security as “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

Climate change impacts on food security

Climate change generates considerable uncertainty about future water availability in many regions. Increased water scarcity under climate change will present a major challenge for climate adaptation. It also has both direct and indirect impacts on agricultural production systems and livestock production in multiple ways. In various countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 20 to 60 percent losses in animal numbers were recorded during serious drought events in the past decades, according to the FAO. 

Climate change may reduce income level and stability through effects on productivity, production costs or prices. Moreover, exposure to climate risks can trigger shocks on agricultural production and food availability, particularly in countries with significant shares of the population spending a large part of their income on food. In brief, climate change affects food security in all its dimensions: access, availability, utilization and stability, and it affects food production and thus food availability, a FAO report read. 

Dr. Amin Al Maligy, professor of physical chemistry at the Egyptian National Research Center, told Jusoor Post that food security is threatened in light of the current global warming and droughts witnessed all over the world. 

“What is happening in Europe and the Gulf is totally surprising,” Al Maligy said, adding, “New studies show that climate change will lead to pandemic outbreak, water scarcity, decreased livestock availability, and crop failure.”

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) mentioned in a new report that water stress and hazards like withering droughts and devastating floods are hitting African communities, economics and ecosystems. Four out of five African countries are unlikely to have sustainably managed water resources by 2030. 

Responses and solutions

The FAO recommends a number of responses that should be adopted by countries in order to address the repercussions of climate change, including building resilience of agricultural systems, increasing the efficiency of scarce resource use in productive systems, investing in resilient agricultural development, applying appropriate policies and institutions at national and international levels, and enhancing markets and trade’s contribution to stability of food security, as well as strengthening regional and international cooperation.

“The world recently began adopting the use of renewable energy, especially hydrogen, which is used in Germany to launch the first hydrogen-powered train, in order to save the planet and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the combustion of petroleum-based products like gasoline and diesel fuel, which is cheaper,” Al Maligy told Jusoor Post. 

He added that the key solution is renewable energy, solar energy, wind power, and hydro energy, which are considered an expensive alternative to petroleum and natural gas which are available and more profitable for investments.

“The planet will burn by the end of the century if the temperature keeps on rising,” Al Maligy emphasized.  

For its part, the University of Washington’s Board of Regents approved a resolution to begin exiting all direct investments in fossil-fuel companies with the goal of complete divestiture by Fiscal Year 2027. The resolution includes a commitment not to renew indirect investments in funds primarily focusing on fossil-fuel extraction or reserves. Both commitments include allowances for firms contributing to the transition to sustainable energy, according to UW News. 

The resolution also includes a goal of investing at least 2.5% of the university’s entire Consolidated Endowment Fund in climate-solutions companies or asset managers and a commitment to achieving net-zero emissions in the university’s endowment fund by Fiscal Year 2050.