Record El Niño threat revives fears of global food crisis
· Citizen
The coming El Niño event – which scientists say has a probability of up to 90% – could be the strongest on record, eclipsing the devastating one of 1877, which was so calamitous, according to some experts, that it change the course of history in a number of countries.
In 1877, temperatures may have gone as high as 3.5ºC above average, according to modern computer modelling.
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Historic El Niño offers a stark warning
This year, projections are temperature increases could be up to 5ºC above average.
This may not seem a lot, but this extra heat in a globally sensitive and interconnected weather system could be catastrophic.
In 1877-78, the phenomenon triggered drought across Africa, South America, Indian and China, and in turn caused famines.
More than 50 million people – or 3% of the world’s population – died. There are those who say it was the worst environmental disaster yet to befall humankind.
The famines were partly caused in India and Africa, by colonial power Britain’s continued exporting of grain from its colonies rather than seeing the locals through the crisis.
It was an artificial food shortage created because of the political environment at the time.
Modern conflicts could worsen the impact
The impact of food shortages may have gone further, according to a recent programme produced by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the US, which said famine conditions may have aided British colonialism to expand its conquered lands, including those of the Zulu people in South Africa, because their warriors may have been weakened by lack of food.
The PBS documentary asked: “Could something like that happen again? Due to modern agriculture, trade and emergency relief, we don’t see famines on the scale we used to.”
But PBS added after global deaths from starvation plummeted 99% in the last century, “we’ve seen a sudden reversal in recent years caused by conflict, climate and economic shocks”.
Today’s global politics also echoes some of the stresses in 1877.
“We have several wars going on. Most nations are not in very good relations with other nations. Today, the global aid system is facing unprecedented cuts with the dismantling of USAid as the most prominent example.
“Researchers estimate those cuts have already contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths and USAid cuts alone could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030.”
Food insecurity and aid cuts raise concerns
The risk to communities facing high disease risk and high food insecurity would be amplified during an El Niño event.
And, added PBS: “We’re also seeing the time between disasters reducing. If people haven’t recovered from one climate event and then they experience another, their capacity to adapt is weakened.”
It noted the early warning systems set up to detect disasters has been downgraded by White House cuts to several federal weather, ocean and climate science agencies.
“What matters is how strong the impacts are around the world.”
El Niño seen as a global threat multiplier
The Small Wars Journal reported El Niño acts as a massive “threat multiplier” that exacerbates existing geopolitical instability, resource competition and state fragility worldwide.
The ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have already restricted global grain flows and choked crucial energy and fertilizer routes.
A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has frozen the export of millions of tons of nitrogen-based fertilizers.
El Niño’s severe droughts and floods will hit agricultural zones that are already starved of these inputs.
“This dual pressure is severely compromising crop yields and driving food inflation past 5%.”
Because India produces nearly a third of the world’s rice, domestic shortages could force strict export bans, triggering diplomatic tensions and acute food shortages in importing nations.
The extreme climate anomalies triggered by El Niño, said the Small Wars Journal, “heavily degrade state legitimacy and empower non-state actors.”
In vulnerable regions like Africa’s Sahel, severe water and food scarcity create a “semi-continental siege”.
Weak or failed central governments are struggling to provide basic relief, allowing radical extremist groups to gain social control by seizing and distributing water sources and food supplies.