UN issues famine warning

UN issues famine warning

RT

The world is advancing toward a catastrophic future where tens of millions of people will be at risk of famine unless climate change is adequately addressed, the United Nations’ human rights chief warned at a debate on Monday.

Speaking to officials at the UN Human Rights Council event in Geneva, Switzerland, Volker Turk said extreme weather events were having a significant negative impact on crops, herds and ecosystems, prompting further concerns about global food availability.

“More than 828 million people faced hunger in 2021,” Turk claimed, “And climate change is projected to place up to 80 million more people at risk of hunger by the middle of this century.”

He added: “Our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying” and that these factors will combine to lead humanity towards a “dystopian future” unless urgent and immediate action is taken by environmental policymakers.

Under the terms of the 2015 Paris Agreement, often referred to as the Paris Climate Accords which adopted by 196 parties at the time, signatories agreed to cap global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 levels – or to 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.

It is predicted that current policies could contribute to a 2.8 degree increase by the end of the century, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

However, Turk said that there is still time to act so as not to “deliver this future of hunger and suffering to our children, and their children. And we don’t have to.”