Caritas is joining other humanitarian organisations to say climate change needs urgent action at a UN meeting in Copenhagen in December to prevent global
hunger.
The statement “Climate Change, Food Insecurity and Hunger†is signed by Caritas, the UN's
food and health agencies WFP, FAO, and the WHO, plus the International Federation of the Red Cross, Oxfam, Word Vision, and Save the Children.
The statement says climate change is
undermining current efforts to end the suffering of over one billion people already affected by hunger. Not having enough to eat is already the single largest contributor to the global burden of
disease, killing 3.5 million people every year, almost all of them children in poor countries.
The risk of hunger and malnutrition could increase by an unprecedented scale within the next
decades. There could be declines from 40 to 90 percent of grasslands in semi-arid and arid areas. Coastal areas may become flooded or unsuitable for farming due to increased salinity from rising sea
levels may make. By 2050, hunger could increase by 10 to 20 percent and child malnutrition is anticipated to be a fifth higher compared to a no-climate change scenario.
Environment
ministers and officials will meet in Copenhagen from 7 December for two weeks to agree a new deal on climate change. The summit must be a start to improving food production, scaling up social
protection systems, and preparing for disasters. Poor communities need support to build climate-resilient lives and escape hunger.
Key messages for Copenhagen:
Climate change will
act as a multiplier of existing threats to food security,
Achieving food security requires substantial increases in food production on the one hand, as well as improved access to adequate and
nutritious food and capacities to cope with the risks posed by climate change on the other hand,
Governments must be assisted in enhancing food production and access, scaling up social
protection systems and improving their ability to prepare for and respond to disasters,
Community-based development processes need to be fostered in order to enable the poorest and most
vulnerable to build sustainable and climate resilient livelihoods and move out of chronic poverty and food insecurity,
The humanitarian community must get prepared for more extreme weather
events and protecting the already food insecure better by strengthening both crisis response and crisis prevention.
A worker dumps plastic bottles at a recycling centre in Ningbo, Zhejiang province November 4, 2009. China, the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, is aiming for many more years of ...
