Pathways for global food security in a warming climate

The consequences of climate change constitute a clear and present danger for human flourishing: they include trillions of dollars-worth of economic losses since the 1970s, concentrated in developing countries; disease spreading as disasters contaminate dwindling water supplies; and an increasingly volatile agricultural environment for farmers as the weather swings from one extreme to another. 

In fact, climate change has made farms significantly less efficient than they were 60 years ago, even though they now cover more of the world’s surface than forests.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science tells us the impacts on health, and on food and water security, are already showing. Yet the World Health Organization (WHO) has calculated that hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved every year if the worst consequences of climate change are avoided. 

IIED has designed a new Food Security Index to fill gaps in the strategic toolbox available to governments and international policy experts to protect their food systems. Systems designed for assessing food security risks are key for strategic decisions about investment, incentives and taxes, but can’t provide a consistent, structural view that can be linked to forward-looking climate scenarios. At the same time, the countries where climate risks to food systems are highest are not covered comprehensively by existing composite indices. 

We’ve brought together data from a range of publicly available indicators that enable the comparison of food security levels across 162 countries, with data for the four pillars of food security for each country.

The four pillars of food security

Food security is comprised of four ‘pillars’, used by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and others. Considering each pillar is important for analysis to be truly useful because climate-driven shocks rarely affect just one aspect of a country’s food landscape, and their effects will differ by geography. These pillars are:

Main findings

The Food Security Index shows that sustainability is where the risk to a nation’s food security, resulting from climate change, appears first – even in the rich world.

The United States of America, whose overall food security score is 8.74 out of 10, provides an illustrative example. It scores extremely high for availability (9.49) but only 7.25 for sustainability, behind other G7 countries like the United Kingdom (8.43) and Germany (8.25), which have comparable overall scores.

In a world that is 2°C hotter than the pre-industrial average, US food sustainability falls by 0.52 points to 6.73, compared to a decline of 0.34 for the UK and 0.40 for Germany. This reduction is markedly greater than the fall in the USA’s aggregate score in a 2°C warming scenario (-0.44). 

Overall, however, our results show a deep divide in food security between wealthy nations and poorer ones. Developed countries are relatively morefood secure, with an average score of 8.86 out of 10, while the least developed countries (LDCs) scored only 5.13 and war-torn nations just 4.29. 

It’s when factoring in the predicted effects of climate change that this divide becomes a chasm and its inherent unfairness is magnified.

The LDCs have contributed very little to historic greenhouse gas emissions but are much more vulnerable to climate change than, say, the EU27. And the Food Security Index shows that as climate risk rises, food security tends to fall. Countries starting from a more fragile position have less capacity to absorb shocks before their food systems slip into crises.

Under a 2°C warming scenario food security scores are predicted to fall by a massive 11.99% in the LDCs, compared to only 3.07% in developed countries – the nations whose historic emissions have done most to cause climate change.

In the catastrophic scenario of 4°C of warming, the economic dominance and stability of the wealthiest countries limits deterioration of their food security to 6.14%, whereas LDCs could see their scores drop by 23.98% from current levels – despite having done least to cause climate change in the first place.

All that said, pure economic power doesn’t provide comprehensive protection and the rich world won’t be entirely insulated from supply chain disruption caused by climate change.

Although each US$1,000 of GDP per capita translates to a 0.2-point increase in the food security score, that boost is least visible in the sustainability pillar. This reinforces the conclusion that sustainability is the most fragile of the four pillars.

Reaction

“Climate change is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful drivers of hunger and food insecurity across the world, particularly in countries where poverty, fragility, and limited fiscal space already constrain resilience,” said Renato Domith Godinho, director of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty Support Mechanism.

“This report provides important new evidence on food security outcomes… exploring how climate impacts are likely to deepen existing inequalities in food systems, with the most severe consequences seen in the most vulnerable countries.

“Its findings align with the landmark Belem Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Human-Centered Climate Action.”

It’s not hard to see how a similar approach could be taken to secure access to food as well, such as by investing in roads that can stand up to the reality of a hotter world.

All this support costs money, but climate-related pressure on food security is greatest on countries that often have little room for manoeuvre in fiscal terms. This means that secure, predictable finance will be important, so nations can avoid taking out new loans reactively and storing up debt interest repayment problems for later.

To that end, and in the same way some governments deploy early-warning systems for their citizens, international climate funds need to create mechanisms that release money to governments based on pre-agreed thresholds or indicators, like the paths of cyclones or water shortages.

One key change in international disaster planning and response must be to consider nutrition, water and sanitation, and primary healthcare together with food security. According to our analysis, utilisation, which is closely linked to health, is extremely sensitive to climate risk.

Tracking and tackling food security problems ought to be done at the level of each of the four pillars, to improve targeting and value for money.

With thanks to IIED's Jon Sharman and consultant Nick Turner for their contributions to the presentation of the index online.