I have noted with interest Oxfam’s very informative Issue Briefing, ‘Growing Disruption: Climate Change, Food and the Fight against Hunger’. Ireland’s new policy for international development, ‘One World, One Future’ , recognises the inextricable link between climate change, development and our ability to tackle global hunger. We have prioritised global hunger and climate change in the Policy.
The scale of the challenge of fighting hunger and providing nutritious food for a growing global population in the context of a changing climate was one of the main development priorities for Ireland’s EU Presidency this year. We hosted a major international conference in Dublin in April to bring the hunger, nutrition and climate agenda together. We brought together key policy makers and local and grassroots people facing the realities of climate change, rising food prices, failed crops, under-nutrition and hunger.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment report entitled Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis, was published recently. This is the Working Group report and I understand that any recommendations will be included in the full report which is to be completed by the end of 2014. The central finding of this report is that scientists are more certain than ever that human activity is increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contributing to raising global land and sea temperatures and changing climate.
At country level, through the Irish Aid programme, we have witnessed the effects of climate change on the ground. Through our work to combat hunger we are providing assistance to help farmers and communities adapt to the changing environmental context. Through our support for agricultural research we are assisting small farmers to become more productive through improving farms practices and seed varieties. We support the work of our non-governmental partners, including Oxfam, to address hunger in the context of a changing climate. We are placing increased focus on agricultural support for conservation farming, agro-forestry, food crop diversification, small scale irrigation and drought resistant seed varieties to help poor farmers to reduce hunger and adapt to a changing climate.
