Countries Affected By Food Crises 2018
There is now growing empirical evidence on how climate change disproportionately affects the poor. With climate change, people face shortage of water and food, resulting in increased competition to access these basic necessities. This increases the chances of the intensification of existing conflicts and also creates new ones.The water crisis in Cape Town began in 2015, and the city continues to live under the threat of becoming the first major city in the world to run out of water. However, the poorer neighbour hoods in the city have not only been dealing with reduced access to water for years now, but are more likely to face the brunt of the crisis.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, shifts in the timing and patterns of rainfall have led to lower food production and greater competition on arable land, increasing ethnic tensions and conflicts in the country. Such conflicts affect the poor the most, and further lead to an increase in poverty and displacement, pushing people into a vicious trap.
- Frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change lead to food shortages and rise in food prices. This causes hunger and malnutrition, the effects of which are felt most strongly by the poor. According to the World Food Programme’s 2018 Global Report on Food Crises, “climate disasters triggered food crises across 23 countries, mostly in Africa, with shocks such as drought leaving more than 39 million people in need of urgent assistance.”
- According to the 2018 Global Report on Internal Displacement, “30.6 million new internal displacements associated with conflict and disasters were recorded in 2017 across 143 countries and territories.” This amounts to 80,000 people being displaced every day. The report identifies floods and storms (mainly, tropical cyclones) as the primary causes of displacement, leading to 8.6 million and 7.5 million displacements, respectively.
- Climate refugees can be found all over the world, displaced by coastal flooding in Dhaka, by hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, or due to the desertification of Lake Chad in West Africa. It is estimated that the number of people seeking asylum in the European Union due to climate change would see a 28% increase by 2100.
- India ranks fifth globally for the losses it has experienced due to climate change. Around 800 million people in the country live in villages and depend on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods. With at least 50% of the farmlands in the country being rain-fed, changes in the pattern of the monsoons will affect their livelihoods the most. Empirical evidence suggests that climate change has led to a decline in wheat yields and has lowered the productivity of workers.
Impact Of Climate Disasters On Food Security
- Studies reveal that small farmers are aware of the long-term changes in the weather pattern and have changed their practices to deal with the resultant socio-economic changes. Small farmers also lack access to credit and other means of insurance, which makes them more vulnerable to climate change. Thus, climate change will make the existing problems of poverty, malnutrition, and farmer suicides worse.
- At the Katowice Climate Conference in 2018, India called out the developed nations for reneging on their promises to provide developing countries with the financial support to combat climate change. It is the poor and developing countries that are being affected by the effects of climate change in the worst way, while having contributed next to nothing in creating the crisis of climate change.
- And, it is these very countries that are being left behind both in terms of growth and development and mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change as they try to juggle their commitments to both. If steps are not taken quickly, climate change has the potential to reverse decades of growth and development globally, and particularly in India.
- The warning bells have been tolling for a while now, and the widening disparities between the developed and the developing countries, the rich and the poor, the global North and the South, are emerging clearer than ever where climate change and its effects are concerned.