Impact - Food insecurity leads to societal collapse—conflict and institutional breakdown, international spillover
Richards, Lupton, and Allwood, 2021 (C.E., Civil Engineering Research Student, University of Cambridge, R.C., Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath, and Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge, “Re-framing the threat of global warming: an empirical causal loop diagram of climate change, food insecurity and societal collapse”, Climatic Change (2021) 164: 49, published 19 February 2021, https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10584-021-02957-w.pdf, accessed 8/7/2021, Former GDI workshop student -GJack)
Walking through the CLD at a high-level, we can see how population growth and lifestyle emissions, influenced by institutional/demographic factors (e.g. emission reduction incen- tives), combine to directly drive climate change. Similarly, they indirectly drive climate change via consumer demand on food production, which produces emissions directly (e.g. ruminant livestock) and indirectly via industrial capital/output (e.g. processing factories). The environmental risk factors (e.g. extreme weather events) of climate change may cause losses of food production either directly (e.g. plant disease) or indirectly via agricultural input availability (e.g. loss of water source for irrigation). A country’s food availability is influenced by domestic food production and international food trade. Food accessibility is influenced by its food price, which responds to domestic (e.g. cost of food production and distribution) and international (e.g. international food price) markets, and institutional/demographic factors (e.g. food subsidies). Food utilization is influenced by infrastructure/services (e.g. education) and institutional/demographic factors (e.g. cultural traditions). Food insecurity is underpinned by these three pillars of food availability, food accessibility and food utilization. For a given country, food insecurity can drive natural mortality (i.e. starvation), conflict and migration, contributing to population loss, as well as economic shocks and socio-political instability, contributing to institutional breakdown, which exacerbates the risk of societal collapse.∂ Beyond a given country suffering increased natural mortality, famines (i.e. food insecurity) can place pressure on international humanitarian efforts (i.e. institutional risk factors). Conflict may occur domestically or internationally and can feedback to exacerbate food insecurity and institutional fragility (i.e. institutional risk factors). Potential mass emigration can increase pressure on food availability, natural resources and infrastructure/services in the destination nation, which can lead to socio-cultural tensions (i.e. institutional risk factors) that fuel conflict. Food insecurity can also directly contribute to institutional risk factors such as social unrest, political instability and economic inequality, which increase the risk of societal collapse due to institutional breakdown, that may also cascade internationally. While already fragile states are expected to be hit the worst directly, these insights reveal the indirect ramifications of climate change on our globalised society (Kemp 2020), with serious conse- quences for humanity’s ‘existential security’ (Sears 2020).