The implications of climate change for food security and livelihoods

Climate Change has been a major game changer across the globe; it has significantly altered our ecosystem and how plants, animals and human beings co-relate. It has significantly impacted food security, production, trade and commercial activity worldwide. The rise in global average temperatures caused mostly by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, have impacted food sources both on sea and land. Needless to say, as climate change intensifies, it will become “increasingly difficult to feed the world’s population”. The threat to food security is even direr in countries which are agriculture-dependent and susceptible to natural disasters.

   Governments, international organizations, businesses, NGOs and individuals, are all using available avenues to echo the gospel of climate change and its devastating effects on planet earth. Immense resources are being utilized in efforts to highlight the importance of lowering carbon emissions and greenhouse gases that are being released into the atmosphere through industrial activity. Environmental protection and climate change are growing concerns and high on the agenda of government and international organizations across the globe. Of such importance is the matter of climate change that Heads of government, diplomats and the world’s top business leaders converged at Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, with this very topic at the top of the agenda. One the first day of Davos 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed his three most significant challenges to civilization today: “climate change, terrorism and the backlash against globalization.”

    The United Nations has climate change as one of its top priority issues. With all this attention given to this issue, is it really being addressed in the truest sense? Has industrialization, the main culprit, showed any signs of slowing down? Are large corporations taking this matter seriously? The UN Secretary General – Antonio Guterres – a powerful advocate or climate action, recently stated that “Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment”. But is it? Can it be said, with all that is at stake, that the major players are doing what is needed to mitigate the effects of climate change? The response is a resounding NO. The UN Secretary General, in his speech at the UN Headquarters on September 10, stated emphatically that “The world’s richest nations are the most responsible for the climate crisis, yet the effects are being felt first and worst by the poorest nations and the most vulnerable peoples and communities”. This kind of indictment from the highest level doesn’t seem to inspire the needed changes in the right circles, and obviously does not resonate well with stubborn politicians and oligarchs, who are, of course in the business of making money, first.

   Climate Change has been a major game changer across the globe; it has significantly altered our ecosystem and how plants, animals and human beings co-relate. It has significantly impacted food security, production, trade and commercial activity worldwide. The rise in global average temperatures caused mostly by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, have impacted food sources both on sea and land. According to NASA, “the potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the number, duration and intensity of tropical storms”. Governments and organizations much rather spending billions on relief and recovery efforts than taking action to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, which would effectively decrease the intensity and duration of storms.

    At the center of the discussion are water and food security, air quality, environmental sustainability and cleaner energy. Needless to say, as climate change intensifies, it will become “increasingly difficult to feed the world’s population”. The threat to food security is even direr in countries which are agriculture-dependent and susceptible to natural disasters. According to the FAO – droughts have become more seasonal in nature in the Caribbean region and agriculture is the most likely sector to be impacted, with serious economic and social consequences. Drought affects the agriculture sector in several ways – by reducing crop yields and productivity and causing premature death of livestock and poultry. A dry spell of 7 to 10 days can result in a reduction of yields, thus negatively affecting the livelihoods of farmers, produce vendors and even food business operators. Droughts also often result in food price increases due to reductions in supply and scarcity.

   Eventually, “more and more people will be forced to migrate from their homes as the land they depend on becomes less able to support them”. There is a pact among some world leaders that we have come to know as The Paris Agreement. When world leaders signed the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, they “pledged to stop temperatures rising by less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to work to keep the increase as close as possible to 1.5 degrees”. “According to a UN study, the commitments made so far by Parties to the Paris Agreement, represent just one-third of what is needed”. Ideally, there must be a change in how mining of all sorts is done; how processing raw earth elements and their bi-products is done; and how industrial-scale manufacturing is done. In reality, mining, processing and manufacturing companies are not there yet.

    The monetary investments required to acquire the new technology, purchase new equipment and build new plants, are considerable and companies are just not yet ready to make such investments while their current strategies work and continue to yield enormous profits. After all, why fix something if it’s not broken? To think in this way however, is short-sighted as it only considers the economic outcome on one hand. On-the-other-hand, the earth is broken and it will cost much more in the future than they are ready to spend now, to fix it or even slow the pace of the damage being done. As a matter of fact, it is for that very reason large corporations and governments are in no rush to address the climate crisis with the urgency it needs – it simply costs too much or at least, much more than they are willing to spend.

    The corporations of the world show no sign of slowing down. In a globalized market economy, in which even the few remaining communist countries are participating, competition is only getting more fierce in all sectors of development – military, infrastructure, technological advancement, ground transportation, aviation, heavy equipment, consumer goods manufacturing and even aerospace, are industries of the fiercest competition. All these industries demand large scale mining and smelting; that leaves damage to the environment, a secondary concern. The earth must be exploited for human survival but exploitation can be done more responsibly.

   Every country and company wants to be at the forefront of development and the consequences to the environment are mere afterthoughts. The unrelenting US-China battle for the top spot have seen factories of all sorts churn out more nitrogen and carbon gases into the atmosphere than ever before. India is catching up rapidly and there, coal burns an eternal inferno because it is cheaper than anything else and the government simply is not prepared to spend too much on cleaner energy while other global players do otherwise. Development is being achieved at a rapid rate at the expense of life on earth. “We know what is happening to our planet; we know what we need to do; we even know how to do it. But sadly, the ambition of our action is nowhere near where it needs to be.” (Gueterres)

   There needs to be a paradigm shift to techno-sustainable development – the use of new technology towards more responsible exploitation, cleaner processing and more efficient usage of the earth’s natural resources. It must be done now in order to save what we can, or risk doing it later when there’s nothing left to save. The evidence is clear and time is against us. The earth can heal itself but we are using up the resources faster than the earth can replenish them. We are burning more fossil fuels than the earth can manage. If we continue pushing the earth to the limits, nature will push back with a force that no government or corporation can remedy. Across all regions, we have seen evidences of the devastation natural disasters can cause. When nature pushes back, humankind sits helpless, even with the best technology and the biggest, toughest earth moving machines ever built at our disposal. Unfortunately for us, the prowess in engineering we employ to change the course of rivers and build dams, will not suffice in changing the course of climate change. Nature itself has provided the alternatives; more action is needed, for our lives depend on it.

Derville Lowe