Number starving rises from 149m to 333m in four years

The number of people going hungry around the world has more than doubled in the past four years, as the world’s leading weather agency sounded a red alert” on the climate crisis.

- STUTI MISHRA ASIA

2023 was the hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) declared yesterday, echoing a host of other scientific bodies that have drawn the same conclusion. The global average temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius hotter than in pre-industrial times in 2023, drawing perilously close to 1.5C – a critical threshold agreed by world leaders, beyond which lie potentially irreversible impacts.

Scientists have warned that 2024 is shaping up to be another record-breaking year of high temperatures. “Never have we been so close to the 1.5C lower limit of the Paris Agreement. The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world,” WMO secretary general Celeste Saulo said.

One of the most concerning findings of the WMO report is the dramatic surge in food insecurity around the world in just a handful of years. Before the pandemic, 149 million people were classed as “acutely food insecure” – meaning they did not have enough food to meet their daily dietary needs. In just four years, that number has more than doubled to 333 million.