A JRC study published in Scientific Reports shows starkly different food-crisis futures depending on socio-economic pathways. The findings show that by 2100, conflict- and inequality-driven scenarios could expose over 1.1 billion people — including more than 600 million children, mostly in Africa and Asia — to severe food crises.
In contrast, sustainable pathways could more than halve the exposure, highlighting how policy choices determine whether hundreds of millions face crises or far fewer are affected.
A new AI model can predict food crises based only on climate
The projections are based on a powerful AI model – developed by the author – capable of identifying the onset of new, severe food crises based only on temperature and precipitation data. The model was trained and tested on a large dataset of historical acute food insecurity data for the period 2010-2022, obtained from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) .
The high accuracy of the model corroborates the idea that climate plays a major, if the not the main role in food-security, not only through obvious direct effects – such as droughts reducing crop yields) – but also through indirect, more convoluted pathways, by modulating, for instance, drivers of conflict, migration, and disease.
By relying solely on widely available climate data, it provides a scalable tool for exploring long-term food-crisis scenarios, unlike traditional models requiring extensive socio-economic inputs.
Current and future yearly human exposure to food-crises
FEWS NET data show that exposure to severe food insecurity nearly tripled from just over 50 million in 2011 to almost 150 million by 2020. When projected onto future climate simulations and combined with demographic and poverty projections consistent with the IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), the AI model reveals sharply diverging food-crisis risks by century’s end.
Under a “Sustainability – taking the green road” pathway (SSP1), average yearly exposure drops by about 75% to ~42 million. In contrast, conflict and inequality futures raise yearly exposure respectively to ~280 million (SSP3) and ~229 million (SSP4). Compared with SSP1, these scenarios put five to seven times more people at risk, and even a middle path (SSP2, “business as usual”) more than doubles exposure.
Cumulative end-of-century risk
Beyond annual risk, the cumulative exposure is staggering: more than 1.16 billion people experience at least one famine crisis this century under the inequality pathway (SSP4), whereas the sustainability pathway could spare about 780 million by 2099. The burden falls heavily on the young – most exposed individuals are children under five at their first crisis (about 630 million under SSP3–SSP4), and hundreds of millions of newborns face a crisis within their first year (230–270 million).
Global inequality
Future food-crisis risk is highly uneven across regions. Although the model detects emerging risks beyond today’s monitored areas, most projected crises occur in already vulnerable regions, especially Africa and Asia.
Africa faces the widest geographic spread of crises, while Asia’s higher population density leads to comparable numbers of people exposed. Under conflict and inequality pathways (SSP3–SSP4), exposure rises steadily on both continents. Under more sustainable futures, however, trajectories diverge: Africa sees a marked decline in exposure after mid-century, while Asia’s exposure remains largely stable. This suggests that even optimistic pathways may deliver limited improvements for Asia’s food security compared with Africa.
Climate change creates risk, but policy multiplies it
Climate change alone does not cause humanitarian crises: social and political conditions act as a multiplier. Societies with high inequality, limited development, or those suffering from ongoing conflict are far more vulnerable, even under the same climatic hazards.
The model also identifies emerging hotspots, especially in tropical and subtropical regions already under stress by warming climate and rainfall variability. This highlights that climate adaptation, peace-building, and inclusive development are as critical as emissions reductions.
By separating climatic triggers from socio-economic exposure, the study offers a new way to anticipate crises before they escalate, supporting early warning systems and guiding investments to reduce risk most effectively.
Climate sets the stage, but human choices determine the scale of future food crises. Sustainable development and mitigation don’t just lower emissions, they dramatically reduce the number of people pushed into hunger.
O artigo foi publicado originalmente em JRC.
