Food, Water and Climate Change

The World Food Program (WFP) points out that after steadily declining for a decade, world hunger is on the rise, affecting nearly 10% of people globally. The scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is enormous, with more than 345 million people facing high levels of food insecurity in 2023 - more than double the number in 2020. This constitutes a staggering rise of 200 million people compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. Of those, more than 900,000 people worldwide are fighting to survive in “catastrophic hunger”, i.e. one step away from famine. This is ten times more than five years ago, an alarmingly rapid increase. The global community must not fail on its promise to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.
Water security and food security have strong linkage to one another, and both are strongly affected by climate change, as more erratic cycles of drought and floods undermine the ability of hundreds of millions of poor people from growing their food. The Food and Agriculture Sector consumes about 2/3 of global water withdrawals, and in many poor developing countries, that figure even exceeds 80%. There are already billions of people in the world with very limited access to water and food, and those demands are expected to increase due to the growing population.
The Food and Agricultural Sector is currently a huge emitter of GHGs. But it could be a major contributor to Carbon Capture and Sequestration. Waste in the sector is large with as much as 30% of the food produced not reaching the consumer in many parts of the world. Movement towards precision agriculture, making best use of the new biology, remote sensing technologies and ICT, and deploying the new possibilities of AI, open enormous avenues for transforming this dire situation. Wiser policies and more effective practices at both local and regional scales should have great impacts on water and soil resources and on agricultural productivity.
This session will discuss sustainable agriculture and food security in relation to water, soil, and needed adaptation and resilience measures in relation to climate change. The session will also consider these questions from the standpoints of innovative technologies including start-ups, public initiatives at local and regional level, and global governance/international cooperation.

Ismail Serageldin

ICEF Steering Committee;
Co-Chair of the Board of Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC);
Emeritus Librarian of Alexandria;
Former VP of the World Bank

CV（68KB）

Valli Moosa

ICEF Steering Committee;
Head of the South African, Presidential Climate Commission;
Former President, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)

CV（65KB）

Phoebe Koundouri

Professor, Athens University of Economics and Business and Technical University of Denmark

CV（85KB）

Dhesigen Pydiah Naidoo

Executive, Climate Adaptation and Resilience, Presidential Climate Commission

CV（66KB）

Rattan Lal

Distinguished University Professor and Director, CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration, The Ohio State University

CV（77KB）

Faten Attig-Bahar

Steering Committee member, Future Earth Water-Energy-Food Nexus Global Research Network

CV（71KB）

Patricia Scotland

Secretary-General of the Commonwealth

CV（67KB）

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