United Nations Security Council High-Level Open Debate, Signature Event of the Guyana Presidency of the United Nations Security Council: “The Impact of Climate Change and Food Insecurity on the Maintenance of International Peace and Security”

Mr President,

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

1. I would like to start by thanking the President of Guyana for convening this meeting and inviting the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to speak.
2. Climate and conflict are THE most important issues requiring urgent action to address global food insecurity.
3. The scientific evidence and the policy direction are clear – climate change is compromising food security, and its impacts are a growing threat to international peace and security.
4. It is having alarming effect on people, the planet and …what I would like to address this morning… agrifood systems – meaning how and when we produce, harvest, process and store our food.
5. Increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and greater frequency of climate extremes are already a reality and are becoming more intense.
   
6. The climate crisis spares no one, but it does not affect everyone equally or in the same way.
7. We know that the populations at greatest risk are those that depend on agriculture and natural resources – they live in rural areas and are farmers themselves.
8. Their livelihoods are highly exposed and are vulnerable to climate change impacts, therefore limiting their capacity to respond, and making them prone to disputes arising from the scarcity of natural resources.
9. Strong, viable livelihoods are central to mitigating these climate-related security risks.
10. When threatened, it creates an important pathway for how climate change can contribute to the risk of conflict.
    
11. For FAO, as a specialized technical agency of the UN system focused specifically on food and agriculture, we increasingly find ourselves in this very space.
12. You have heard it said many times: “There is no food security without peace, and no peace without food security!”
13. But now, more and more, we are dealing with the impacts of climate change.
14. We have seen firsthand how conflict leads to hunger and malnutrition, and it is no coincidence that half of the world's hungry people live in conflict-affected zones.
    
15. According to the 2023 Global Report on Food Crises, the main drivers of food insecurity and hunger around the world are conflict and climate change…
16. 258 million people in 58 countries are facing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above), and over two-thirds are there because of climate and conflict… that is, 174 million people.
17. While there may not be a direct causality between the two, there is clear evidence that:
    • climate change increases risks and drivers of conflict and instability, such as disputes over land and water, and
    • that conflict contributes to climate change vulnerability, especially for people who are forced to leave their homes and migrate.
18. As much as 70 percent of the most climate-vulnerable countries are also among the most politically and economically fragile.
    
19. Climate change will undo the progress that has been made in alleviating hunger, but as it intensifies it will create further disruptions and continue to be a driver of conflict.
20. It is projected that 10 percent of the currently suitable area for major crops and livestock could be climatically unsuitable by mid-century under high emission scenarios.
21. This is a further reduction of an already limited area that we depend on to produce our food…
    
22. And it is this scenario, it is all farmers, small-scale farmers, pastoralists, foresters and fisherfolk who bear the brunt of climate impacts, due to their dependence on natural resources – soil, water, and land….
    
23. I see this on my own family’s farm in the Midwest of the US. And I see it first hand in places like Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and elsewhere.
24. Conflict impacts the ability of communities to produce and access food – it reduces agricultural productivity, it displaces farmers from their lands, it destroys agricultural assets, disrupts markets and services, increases prices and even introduces new risks for human health.
25. We have to equip farmers and communities to prepare for, and respond to, these crises and to recover quickly from them – we have to help them build resilience.
26. We are actually seeing the results of these efforts in a place like Afghanistan – we are starting to see a significant decline of the population facing acute hunger.
27. We know these approaches can work, we just need to scale them up.
    
28. The Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund has been responding effectively to the need to address the intersection of climate change and conflict, and the effects of heightened competition over natural resources.
29. It works, and FAO remains committed to supporting these types of projects and to strengthen collaboration with partners. ^[1]
    
30. The relationship between climate change and conflict is complex, it’s context specific and multidimensional.
31. Let me share just a few examples:
32. In West and Central Africa, cross-border transhumance is a long-standing traditional pastoral practice – it is when herders migrate seasonally, crossing borders with their livestock, in search of water and pasture.
33. Historically, it has been peaceful, but climate change and environmental and security pressures have altered these migratory routes.
34. This has led to a steady increase in tensions within agriculture, between farming and herding communities, often linked to growing competition for already scarce natural resources, such as water and land, or to damage incurred to crops in fields.
35. This problem exists in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, where FAO and the International Organization on Migration (IOM) are working together to reduce violent conflicts linked to transhumance through an alert system and mechanisms for conflict management.
    
36. This is just a glimpse of our work with herders and pastoralists[CE1] .
37. But as you know, climate change and conflict affects all agricultural sectors, not just livestock – it affects crop production, fisheries and forestry which are intimately and inextricably linked to climate change.
38. And it creates additional pressures on accessing natural resources.
39. In Yemen, FAO has implemented a water for peace project which has helped to mitigate water-based conflicts – with women often as the conflict-resolution agents.
40. Through cash for work, participating communities protected areas where water flows during rainfall and rehabilitated irrigation canals.
41. Farming communities engaged under the project to resolve local conflicts over upstream and downstream water allocation.
    
42. Climate change and the security risks it presents know no geographical boundaries.
43. Therefore, cooperation is needed at all levels to ensure the peaceful and sustainable management of shared resources.
    
44. To continue to advance this agenda, let me close by recommending the following five actions:
    • Prioritize investments. We need to build climate-resilient agrifood systems and local approaches that help build and sustain peace, drawing on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and community-based approaches.
    • Request UN entities to regularly analyse, and report on, risks and links associated with climate change. Data and information are key for targeted interventions.
    • Improve strategic coordination at all levels and leverage existing mechanisms – such as, the UN Climate Security Mechanism and IGAD’s Climate Security Coordination Mechanism.
    • Source specialised climate, peace and security advisor roles in more UN missions, especially those susceptible to climate change.
    • Establish regional climate, peace and security hubs, such as was done by the Office of the Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa.
45. I’ll conclude by simply saying that we cannot neglect agriculture as a key solution to the growing threats from climate change, conflict and their impacts on food security.
46. It is time for us to focus on farmers, on pastoralists, on fisherfolk, on foresters…. The people who feed this world, and we cannot afford to leave anyone behind.
    
47. Thank you.
    

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