The Link Between Undernutrition And Climate Change
Andrew Mitchell of the French NGO Action contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger), a member of the UN Committee, pointed out that links between climate change and nutrition were not restricted to getting enough food. “Malnutrition could potentially be the output of climate change’s impact on sectors such as health and water.” Over 19 million children face hunger-related death at any given moment but only 3% of them receive treatment, the UNSCN said in a statement as the two-week climate change conference began on 7 December. According to climate change projections, food production could shrink by as much as 50% by 2020 in some African countries, and by 30% in Central and South Asia, creating a very high risk of hunger. The UNSCN noted that undernutrition was caused by inadequate nutrition and disease, which stemmed from insufficient food, poor maternal and child care practices, and poor access to clean drinking water, unsafe sanitation and ill health – all of which were directly affected by climate change. A study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based think-tank, called for “aggressive” investment – ranging from US$7.1 to $7.3 billion a year – to raise calorie consumption enough to offset the negative impacts of climate change on the health and well-being of children. The UNSCN has called for the development of a knowledge base to inform future programming on climate change and nutrition, the establishment of a comprehensive nutrition surveillance system, and identification, validation and costing of the interventions required to protect nutrition from climate change and related hazards. It urged governments and aid agencies to scale up interventions that successfully reduced the impacts of climate change on nutrition, and increased community resilience to climate change.