FAO statement at ECOSOC HAS – High Level Panel 3: Humanitarian impacts of the climate crisis - escalating risks, challenges, and actions

 

High-Level Panel 3: Humanitarian impacts of the climate crisis: escalating risks, challenges and actions

Statement by FAO, delivered by

Humanitarian and Resilience Programme Officer at the FAO Liaison Office with the UN in New York, Conor Elliott
 

Thank you, Madame moderator,

Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen,

The climate crisis affects and threatens everyone, everywhere, across all sectors. And we have heard many calls for action today, among them the specific alarm raised by Dr. Abdelmoula who stressed the dire situation of 7.1 million acutely food insecure people due to drought, on top of other drivers, and risk of famine faced by more than 200,000 people in Somalia.

Globally, acute food insecurity is at a record high, driven by a deadly mix of conflict, climate change-related weather extremes, and economic shocks, including those caused by COVID-19. 

Agriculture absorbs more than 26% of the overall impact caused by medium- to large-scale climate-related disasters. This increases to 80% when looking solely at drought events. 

Climate change damages and losses are contributing to increasing migration and displacement; damaging livelihoods, infrastructure and assets; increasing hunger and inequality; along with affecting health and security.

As stressed during the UN Food Systems Summit, the global food system is failing to meet human needs equitably and sustainably. 

Agri-food systems must urgently transition and transform from being a problem driving climate change, to becoming one of the main climate solutions, while also ensuring food security and wellbeing for all.

Small-scale farmers, herders, fishers, forest dwellers, food workers and their families are central for achieving sustainable development, as they provide over 80 percent of the food consumed in a large part of the developing world. 

At the same time, they are often among the world’s poorest and most food insecure as they struggle to access technologies, capacities, and financing to adapt and transform to become key agents of change.  

FAO and its partners support the blending of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation by moving to multi-risk management in agri-food sectors by regional, national, sub-national and local actors. This is done through a suite of complementary actions including in-depth multi-risk analysis, and risk-sensitive planning, implementation, and monitoring. 

Examples include agro-climatic and disaster risk information systems; early warning systems triggering Anticipatory Action; disaster and climate risk governance; risk transfer; nature positive solutions; risk proofing of infrastructure, among many others. 

At FAO, we believe that if we work together to manage the risks and crises relating to agri-food systems, we can build the resilience of agriculture to ensure food security and nutrition for present and future generations. 

Thank you.