Extreme droughts, devastating floods, desertification. In six years, the "acute hunger" more than doubled in the countries most exposed to climate catastrophes, according to the NGO Oxfam, which asks industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and repair the damage caused.
In a report published on Friday, the NGO estimates that acute hunger increased 123% since 2016 in ten countries among the most exposed to climate risks.
In Somalia, Haiti, Djibouti, Kenya, Niger, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe, 48 million people are acutely food insecure and need urgent help to survive.
Eighteen million are even on the brink of famine.
If conflicts and economic crises continue to be the main causes of hunger, "extreme weather events, increasingly numerous and violent, they also reduce the ability of poor populations to counteract hunger and face future crises"says the NGO.
Somalia, one of the countries least prepared to face the climatic emergency, is suffering the worst drought in its history.
In Guatemala, the lack of water caused the loss of 80% of the corn harvest and decimated the coffee plantations. Both phenomena caused exoduses.
The fact that the countries least responsible for the climate crisis are the ones that suffer the most is "clear evidence of global inequality".
The industrialized countries are "responsible for more than three-quarters of global carbon emissions"while that these 10 vulnerable countries barely emit 0.13%, Oxfam points out.
"In less than 18 days, the benefits of fossil energy companies would be enough to finance the entire humanitarian requests of the UN for 2022"of about 48,000 million dollars.
During the 2022 UN General Assembly that opened on Tuesday and COP27 scheduled for November, world leaders must commit to massively reduce their emissions and "offer compensation to the most affected countries"asks Oxfam.