1 December 2015 – A powerful online research tool launched today in
Paris at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) offers a
window on the world’s global future to the 2080s, according to the UN
World Food Programme (
WFP).
“What the tool shows us is that we must reduce emissions and we must
also invest in adaptation,” Ertharin Cousin, the Executive Director of
WFP, told the
UN News Service in an interview following the launch of the new map at a
COP21 press briefing.
“Reducing emissions without investing in adaptation will not allow us to
deliver the durable, sustainable results over the next century to
ensure that we can provide the prosperity and peace that the
2030 Agenda [for Sustainable Development] so boldly supports,” she added.
Ms. Cousin further highlighted that the map paints a stark picture of
how climate disasters drive hunger: “In Paris, we must decide between a
future world where ending hunger is achievable – or one where we and
every future generation continue this losing struggle responding to the
scourge of global hunger,” she said.
In less than two weeks, Member States are expected to adopt a new
universal climate change agreement intended to limit the global
temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius. Experts have reported
that a rise beyond this level will cause irreversible damage to the
planet by exacerbating droughts, floods, food and water shortages,
affecting the most vulnerable countries first.
According to WFP, the new research tool – called the Food Insecurity and
Climate Change Vulnerability map – examines how over time climate
change may increase hunger vulnerability across the globe. Depending on
the outcome of the Paris negotiations, the agency says future
generations will inherit a world with less vulnerability than today, or a
world significantly more vulnerable to food insecurity.
Produced with the Met Office Hadley Centre, it illustrates how strong
adaptation and mitigation efforts can prevent the worst impacts of
climate change on hunger globally and help make people less vulnerable
to food insecurity. But it also shows how failure to adapt along with
increases in greenhouse gas emissions, could increase the vulnerability
of millions of people to hunger and malnutrition.
“Helping vulnerable people adapt and build their resilience to climate
related disruptions requires identifying sufficient and predictable
funding, while simultaneously investing in a low carbon future,” Ms.
Cousin said. “Only if leaders get it right in Paris will we end hunger
by 2030 and provide future generations with the opportunity to enjoy
sustainable and durable global food security.”
The map incorporates five years of research between WFP’s food security
experts and world-renowned scientists from the Met Office Hadley Centre.
It shows how climate change affects food security vulnerability in
least developed countries today, and through sophisticated projections,
the extent to which it will do so in the future, depending on climate
action.
Users can select a time – present day, 2050s and 2080s – and view
vulnerability to climate-induced hunger (low at white, high at deep red)
according to adaptation efforts and levels of emissions.
“Our joint research shows how climate change can affect the scale and
geography of food insecurity, and how adaptation and mitigation can
address the challenges of future food insecurity in developing and
least-developed countries,” said Kirsty Lewis, a Climate Security
Science Manager at the Met Office, in a
press release.
In the meantime, WFP recalled that climate disasters affect hungry and
vulnerable people disproportionately, and that such disasters increase
hunger by destroying land, livestock, crops and food supplies, making it
harder for people to access markets and food networks.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52701#.Vl_ENV7eums
