Nutrition
Providing children with the nutrition they need means they can fulfil their potential and build a brighter, healthier future.
Extreme weather events like floods and wildfires destroy homes and crops. But climate change is also a big cause of hunger around the world.
The climate emergency is a humanitarian emergency. Without change, there will be food crises globally due to the warming climate and biodiversity loss. Extreme weather events will become more frequent and growing seasons will be shorter.
How climate change affects hunger
Climate change causes extreme weather events, like droughts, floods, wildfires and extreme temperatures. This can seriously affect how much food is available.
Extreme weather can force people to leave their homes and their livelihoods. Crops can be reduced, destroyed or fail completely. In turn, this leads to a drop in food production. And less food means more hunger.
The consequences of climate change
Countries across the world are experiencing more and more climate-related disasters. Severe drought is a leading cause of undernutrition in more than a third of countries that have seen a rise in hunger levels in the past 15 years.
In the Sahel region of Africa – which includes countries such as Niger, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso – the rainy seasons are becoming more erratic. Droughts are leading to a decrease in food production while floods are causing outbreaks of diseases like cholera.
Climate change is a long-term threat to food security and nutrition. By 2050, the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20% if we fail to reduce and prevent the adverse effects of climate change.
