Countries in the Asia-Pacific including the Philippines must ramp up their climate change policies, as escalating climate-related hazards threaten efforts to reduce hunger and poverty in the region, according to a new study.
The research paper has found that the Asia-Pacific region is faltering on decades of progress in reducing poverty and hunger. “Increasingly, severe climate-related hazards are threatening food security and triggering human displacement on an unprecedented scale,” it said.
Despite being at the halfway point for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress has stalled, achieving only 15% of the targets under the 17 Goals, according to the paper published by the Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership earlier this year.
“Most worryingly, the region is regressing on Goal 13 (Climate Action), while progress on Goal 1 (No Poverty) and Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) has halted since the COVID-19 pandemic,” the paper entitled People and Planet: Addressing the Interlinked Challenges of Climate Change, Poverty and Hunger in Asia and the Pacific said.
“The rapid rise in global temperatures is producing record breaking heat in major cities around the region,” it continued. “We are getting our first glimpse of a future where global temperatures rise beyond the climate tipping point of 1.5°C.”
Moreover, the burden of climate impacts is unevenly distributed, with poorer countries and communities far more vulnerable and less able to adapt. Droughts, floods and heatwaves are straining environmental and socio-economic systems, resulting in more poverty, less food security, and failing levels of health and nutrition.
The impacts are seen across the region. In Indonesia, delayed monsoons are associated with greater chronic and acute malnutrition. In Papua New Guinea, frequent El Niño-related droughts resulted in increased food and water insecurity, particularly in the highlands and rural areas.
In the Philippines, Super Typhoon Carina triggered massive flooding in the National Capital Region in July this year and caused significant destruction across various agricultural regions in the country.
In the Pacific, the effects of climate change on agriculture and fisheries are likely to drive up the reliance on imported foods of low nutritional quality, leading to a rising prevalence of obesity, the paper continued.
Sadly, “current global and regional policies do not adequately support the integration of climate, poverty and hunger priorities,” it said.
“The interlinkages between climate, poverty and food insecurity require integrated approaches to unlock synergies and deliver transformative changes. Three areas present great potential for integrated solutions: promoting sustainable food systems, ensuring just transition and decent work, and developing climate resilient social protection systems.”
The document said transformative solutions require the right enabling environment, driven by improved educational awareness, strengthened institutional capacity, coherent policy frameworks, augmented capital, innovation and technology, robust regional cooperation, and partnerships by multiple actors.
“The report’s findings are an urgent call to action. We must act quickly to increase collaboration and scale climate policies with inclusive social development practices, and to help governments address poverty, hunger and climate change, simultaneously,” the study authors said.
They suggest integrating policy and investments that consider social protection, resilient food systems, disaster risk reduction and sustainable agricultural practices for an effective approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
