The Link Between Climate Change and Food Systems

To close out 2022, USAID’s Chief Nutritionist Shawn Baker sat down with this year’s World Food Prize Laureate Cynthia Rosenzweig, head of the Climate Impacts Group at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. She was recently honored for her predictive research on the interaction between climate and food systems. 

The following Q&A was edited from a Dec. 7 conversation for length and clarity.

Shawn: It's been an incredibly long journey for you to get attention paid to the interface between the climate crisis and food systems. Please share how this journey started.

Cynthia: I was a graduate student at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. As early projections of climate change were coming out, the then-director James Hansen asked the question: “What will happen to food?” I've been answering that question ever since.

Shawn: That's a pretty profound question, which we are grateful for your leadership to try and respond. Almost every week, a study comes out with more evidence about the impacts of the climate crisis on nutrition. Could you summarize what we know about those potential impacts?

Cynthia: There are really multifaceted effects of climate change on nutrition. Increasing carbon dioxide has been shown to decrease protein as well as some micronutrients in crop grains. There need to be detailed studies to trace the declines from the grains all the way to consumption to see how those very important findings play out on human nutrition. But beyond those biological effects, there are massive impacts on food security from increasing food shocks that are, in part, related to climate change. For example, undernutrition is strongly linked with hot climates.

Shawn: Yes, the climate crisis has undermined local food systems that women and children rely on for survival. The U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative has financed technology, training, and research that reduce food loss and waste, as well as lessen the environmental impact on food systems worsened by extreme weather. While there seems to be an understanding that climate change has damaged food security, I'm not sure decision makers fully understand how this translates into increased malnutrition, particularly child deaths.

Cynthia:  I totally agree with you. And what I think our communities need to do is create concrete linkages between nutrition and climate change action. From working on the Global Nutrition Report together, I learned about the Nutrition Accountability Framework. And a lot of it is actually quite similar to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Nationally Determined Contributions. What we need to do is make explicit linkages between the two and take this analysis to COP28.

Shawn: USAID is supporting partners to climate-proof food security, a major focus of the agency’s new climate strategy, the Global Food Security Strategy, and the Global Food Security Research Strategy, which underpin our Feed the Future work and to advance the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE). Seeing innovation in places most affected by climate change and undernutrition brings me hope. What is energizing you these days?

Cynthia: I'm energized by the amazing uptake by groups all around the world studying climate change and food solutions. But we have to do more to link climate justice with nutrition projects. This is happening through AgMIP, the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project, a collaboration among over 1,200 scientists. We are now ready to take the next step in which we ask — “Okay, what are the nutrition outcomes from climate change?” — and to document those outcomes. This will provide the evidence base for national policymakers to include nutrition in their climate response. AgMIP develops local capacity to generate this evidence and then works with global modelers to scale learning.

Shawn: The newest UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Vanessa Nakate, a young climate activist from Uganda, said at a recent USAID co-hosted event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting: “Those that are suffering the most are the ones that are least responsible for this crisis. There is no climate justice without nutrition justice.” Do you have more examples of bringing young people’s voices to the climate change agenda?

Cynthia:  In AgMIP, we have fantastic young scientists. The World Food Prize Foundation also has great programs for high school and college students. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Foreign Agricultural Service has the Borlaug Fellowship Program for early and mid-career researchers and policymakers. We have to build long-term relationships with young people. One-off engagement is just not going to work.

Shawn: It’s important to really have a systems approach, where you're supporting them throughout their careers. Any last words about more firmly linking nutrition to the climate crisis?

Cynthia: We need to bring the climate change community, which is my community, and the nutrition community, which is your community, together in a radical collaboration.

Shawn: Bringing these voices together is going to make us all stronger.

Cynthia: We are going to solve the climate crisis. We are going to solve it because we must solve it.