By LI Climate Justice Member, Susanna Rivero Baughman (Spain) from Fundació Llibertat i Democràcia (LI Full member); Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Advisor at the Ministry for Environment and Sustainability in the Government of Catalonia; leading member of the Regions Adapt, the first global initiative of regional governments to take action on climate change adaptations.

Climate change has a negative effect on crop and food production through higher temperatures, elevated CO2 concentration, precipitation changes, increased weeds, pests and disease. The abundance and distribution of fisheries and aquaculture are also affected because of sea temperature rise, ocean acidification, and changes in the frequency, intensity and location of extreme events. Overall food systems – from production to processing to retail – are severely affected by climate change.

Such changes also have an adverse impact on nutrition and food security, including food access, utilization, and price stability. According to IPPC projections, a global temperature increase of 4°C or more above late-20th-century levels, combined with increasing food demand, would pose large risks to food security both globally and regionally. It is estimated that changes in temperature and precipitation will contribute to increased global food prices by 3% to 84%. Climate change will be a factor in food price increases, and hence its affordability, which will heighten the vulnerability of households to food access.

Furthermore, food systems contribute 21% to 37% of global greenhouse gases, and are one of the main drivers of environmental degradation, since they greatly contribute to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and decline in fresh water quality. How food is produced, what is consumed, and how much is lost or wasted matters for the future of our health and planet’s well-being.

World hunger may further escalate as the climate crisis hits the economies that have the greatest impact on vulnerable people. Food security and climate change have a strong gender and equity dimension. Women, particularly in developing countries, will suffer from the greatest damage or loss of harvests and livelihoods because of the greater frequency of extreme climate events, which will make their living conditions even more precarious. Food security, poverty and income security are all fundamentally interconnected.

According to FAO, more than 820 million people in the world were hungry, largely due to man-made conflicts, climate change, and economic downturns. This reflects the enormous difficulty of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger – that pledges to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Likewise, it is estimated that the world will need 60% more food to feed 9,1 billion people in 2050. Some experts say this will be possible; however, it will require a huge effort and major changes in how we produce and consume food.

Liberals are committed to equity, social justice and food sovereignty. Access to sufficient, safe, adequate, healthy, food is a fundamental human right.

Ending hunger can only be achieved when decent income, healthy, secure and sustainable food production are well established. Liberal governments must make the necessary investments and put forward adequate public policies to ensure these outcomes.

The EAT- Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health points to healthy diets from sustainable food systems – planetary health diets – as the way forward to eradicate hunger with a growing world population in light of the looming climate crisis.

This will primarily require the transformation of eating habits to increasing the consumption of plant-based food and limiting resource-intensive animal-based food. It would also require improvement of food production without expanding agricultural land by closing yield gaps, improving applied fertilizer efficiency and water management, implementing climate mitigation measures, and enhancing biodiversity within agricultural systems.

It will require halving food loss and waste by implementing technological solutions applied along the food chain, increasing collaboration along the supply chain, and raising awareness of responsible and sustainable consumption.

Likewise, it will require empowering small farmers in breeding local varieties and preserving sustainable and traditional agricultural practices, which are key to increasing the climate resilience of communities.

Also, land access and land tenure rights must be improved, particularly for women in developing countries; this is fundamental to securing their right to food and the assets necessary for a decent livelihood.

We as consumers hold great power. We should be taking greater responsibility for paying farmers a fair price for what they grow, choosing the most socially and environmentally responsible products, including food products with a low-carbon footprint. After all, paying more attention to our food is not just a powerful lever, but an absolute necessity for improving our health and the environment.