Hot and hungry: how to stop climate change derailing the fight against hunger
Hunger is not and need never be inevitable. However climate change threatens to put back the fight to eradicate it by decades – and global food system is woefully unprepared to cope with the challenge. Oxfam analyses how well the world’s food system is prepared for the impacts of climate change. Assess ten key factors that influence a country’s ability to feed its people in a warming world – these include the quality of weather monitoring systems, social safety nets, agricultural research and adaptation finance. Across all ten areas found a serious gap between what is happening and what is needed to protect food systems. These gaps in preparedness are driven by poverty, inequality and lack of political will. While many countries – both rich and poor – are inadequately prepared for the impact of climate change on food, it is the world’s poorest and most food insecure countries that are generally the least prepared for and most susceptible to harmful climate change. No country's food system will be unaffected by worsening climate change.