A recent study on climate change published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society highlighted the serious food insecurity situations the world is going to face in the near future.

Inadequate and erratic rainfall will be posing a growing threat to food security in Asia, Southern, and Eastern Africa, where many rural households will have to agonise from consecutive drought-affected agricultural seasons. The rise in undernourishment and food insecurity in the future will be related to the possessions of climate change and crop failures.

The following are some of the scary predictions –
• The flow of the Ganges could more than double if warming increases by two degrees.
• Floods which usually lasts for four days in India and Bangladesh might stay for more days causing serious damage.
• The flow of the Amazon could decrease by 25 percent in a two-degree- warmer world.
• 2°C increase in global temperature would lead to maximum daily temperatures five degrees higher in parts of Europe.
• A 1.5°C increase in temperature, might push serious food insecurity in countries like Oman, Bangladesh, Mauritania, and Yemen.

The FAO report lists the following 37 countries as currently in need of outside food help: Afghanistan; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Congo; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Guinea; Haiti; Iraq; Kenya; Lesotho; Liberia; Libya; Madagascar; Malawi; Mali; Mauritania; Mozambique; Myanmar; Niger; Nigeria; Pakistan; Sierra Leone; Somalia; South Sudan; Sudan; Swaziland; Syria; Uganda; Yemen; and Zimbabwe.

Image Source: Bungeroth/CAFOD