How the climate crisis is fuelling hunger in an already hungry world
Climate change is deepening hunger in 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe. These countries – which had the highest number of UN appeals driven by extreme weather events – have repeatedly been battered by extreme weather over the last two decades. Today, 48 million people across those countries suffer acute hunger (up from 21 million in 2016), and 18 million people of them are on the brink of starvation.
For millions of people already pummeled down by ongoing conflict, widening inequalities, and economic crises, repeated climate shocks are becoming a backbreaker. The onslaught of climate disasters is now outpacing poor people’s ability to cope, pushing them deeper into severe hunger.
The frequency of climate disasters is increasing faster than poor people can cope, leading to severe hunger.
Meanwhile, as humanity faces this existential crisis, the biggest polluting countries continue to make extraordinary wealth: the oil and gas industry has amassed $2.8 billion per day in profits for each of the last 50 years. Less than 18 days of those profits would cover the entire $48.82 billion UN humanitarian appeal for 2022.
Oxfam is calling for rich polluting nations to immediately inject lifesaving funds to meet the UN appeal. To stop the next climate crisis, they must also drastically cut their emissions, guarantee adequate climate financing to help poor people adapt, and above all compensate low-income countries impacted by the climate crisis.
