The charity Oxfam looked at 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots, hit by drought, floods, severe storms and other extreme weather, and found that their rates of extreme hunger had more than doubled in the past six years. In the countries studied, 48 million people are currently suffering from acute hunger, up from about 21 million people in 2016. Of those, about 18 million people are on the brink of starvation, according to the Oxfam report published on Thursday. The 10 countries covered in the report – Somalia, Haiti, Djibouti, Kenya, Niger, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe – were the ones with the highest number of appeals from the UN due to extreme weather events. Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, said: “Climate change is no longer a ticking time bomb, it is exploding before our eyes. It makes extreme weather events such as droughts, cyclones and floods – which have increased fivefold in the past 50 years – more frequent and more deadly.” As global warming accelerates, fossil fuel companies are reaping big profits from the skyrocketing gas price following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Fossil fuel companies’ profits over 18 days would be enough to meet the UN’s $49 billion appeal for humanitarian aid this year, according to the Oxfam report. Governments will meet in Egypt in November for the UN’s Cop27 climate talks, where they will be asked to plan much tighter cuts in greenhouse gases and rich countries will be asked to provide funding to poor countries to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. . However, many leading figures are gloomy about the dim prospects of the talks. Geopolitical turmoil over the war in Ukraine has jeopardized the fragile coalition assembled at Cop26 in Glasgow last November, where all countries agreed to focus on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Bucher said: “Leaders of rich polluting countries must keep their promises to reduce emissions. They must pay for adaptation measures and loss and damage in low-income countries, as well as immediately provide rescue funds to meet the UN’s call to respond to the worst-hit countries.” Bucher previously called for a windfall tax on energy and food companies, which have also benefited from rising food prices around the world. He also asked that the debts of the poorest countries be written off. Among the countries highlighted in Oxfam’s report, most are severely affected by drought, many of them in Africa. Somalia is experiencing its worst drought on record and 1 million people have been forced to flee, while in Kenya 2.5 million animals have died and 2.4 million people are starving. Cereal production in Niger has fallen by 40% due to extreme weather conditions, leaving 2.6 million people in a state of acute hunger, while the desertification of crops and pastures in Burkina Faso has resulted in more than 3.4 million people in extreme hunger .
