The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have issued their first joint appeal for funds to avert a global hunger crisis before it happens, as the El Niño weather pattern threatens to devastate vulnerable regions. The agencies said they are $167m short of the $202m needed to help 8.8 million people with drought-resistant seeds, flood defences, water storage systems and cash transfers, citing research that shows every $1 spent in anticipatory action saves $7 in humanitarian relief costs.
El Niño Returns Amid Unprecedented Conditions
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US said El Niño conditions had formed in the Pacific last week and carried a 63% chance of being very strong by the peak near the end of the year. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology followed on Tuesday, warning it would worsen the extreme heat and wildfires that engulf the country each year. Some scientists have informally dubbed it a super or Godzilla El Niño based on the expected size of the temperature anomaly, which will push global heat higher at a time when extreme weather events such as Europe's recent heatwaves and storms are pushing the boundaries of what societies can handle.
Scientists say next year is almost certain to be the hottest on record, while a host of economic factors have left vulnerable countries more exposed. About half of the world's 68 poorest countries are experiencing debt distress or at high risk of it, the International Monetary Fund warned in March, and the Iran war has since led to high energy prices and restricted fertiliser supplies that have weakened buffers against weather shocks.
Historical Impact and Current Threats
El Niño, a natural weather pattern characterised by hot years and brutal extremes, has historically caused apocalyptic suffering. In the worst El Niño years in the 19th century, the death toll from famines in India, China and Brazil stretched into the tens of millions. The 1972-73 El Niño warmed Peruvian waters to levels that collapsed the world's largest anchovy fishery and brought harsh drought to south Asia, the Sahel and parts of east Africa. In Ethiopia, protests against the emperor's handling of the famine helped a military coup that ushered in a communist dictatorship.
This year, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network projected 115-125 million people would need urgent food assistance by December, with risks of famine in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia. The gutting of US overseas aid and the shrinking of European development budgets means less support may come when crises hit.
Compound Impacts Across Sectors
A study by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre warned on Monday that El Niño-related shocks may be increasing the likelihood of compound and non-linear systemic impacts, with knock-on effects that run the gamut of economic sectors connected to the natural world. A plausible transmission pathway would run from droughts, floods and heat stress affecting agricultural production, labour productivity, water availability, hydropower generation and transport systems, to higher food and energy prices, inflationary pressure, fiscal stress and weaker borrower repayment capacity.
Shockwaves are also set to be felt in the rich world as El Niño brings stronger heatwaves and wider spread of some vector-borne diseases. Its arrival persistently slows improvements in mortality even in wealthy countries such as the US, Australia, Japan and South Korea, according to a study published in January in Nature Climate Change.
Call for Action
Climate campaigners have called for the cancellation of global south debt and the funding of social protections through windfall taxes on excess profits of oil and gas companies, rather than funding fossil fuels. There is a lot of research showing that targeted social protection is way more effective than subsidising fossil fuels and fertilisers because it goes to the people who need it most, said Anne Jellema, the executive director of 350.org, a climate campaign group.
António Guterres, who ends his terms as UN secretary general at the end of this year, has been making similarly desperate calls to global leaders for years, pleading with them to break the addiction to fossil fuels that has driven the overheating of the planet and the degradation of the natural world. The world has warmed by about 1.3C since the Industrial Revolution, and temperatures are rising so fast that the worst El Niño years of the recent past, such as 1997-98, are far less hot than current years in which the system shifts to La Niña, its cooler counterpart.
