STORMS, DROUGHTS AND HUNGER: EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS, FOOD INSECURITY AND THE SDG DEFICIT IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Authors: S. Balaselvakumar and S.B. Hemavarthinii
S. Balaselvakumar: Department of Geography, Government Arts College, Tiruchirappalli – 620 022, Tamil Nadu, India.
S.B. Hemavarthinii: School of Agricultural Sciences, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences (Deemed to be University), Coimbatore – 641 114, Tamil Nadu, India.
ABSTRACT
The intensifying frequency and severity of extreme weather events — encompassing tropical cyclones, compound droughts, monsoon floods, and prolonged heat stress — constitutes one of the most consequential and insufficiently addressed threats to global food security in the twenty-first century. The Global South, despite contributing minimally to cumulative historical greenhouse gas emissions, bears a disproportionate share of climate-induced agricultural disruption and nutritional deficit. This systematic review synthesises evidence published between 2020 and 2026 on the causal pathways connecting extreme weather events to food insecurity and nutritional outcomes, with particular emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Drawing upon 247 peer-reviewed studies, IPCC Sixth Assessment Report findings, and FAO annual food security reports, this paper examines how storms, droughts, and floods undermine all four pillars of food security — availability, access, utilisation, and stability — and systematically erode progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) and its intersecting targets across SDGs 1, 3, 6, 10, 13, and 15. A structured evidence synthesis reveals high-confidence findings in regional yield loss projections and food price transmission mechanisms, moderate-confidence findings in nutrition-climate linkages, and important data gaps in gender-disaggregated longitudinal outcomes. As of 2024, an estimated 2.3 billion people remain moderately or severely food insecure globally — 683 million more than in 2015 — with climate-related shocks identified as a primary accelerating driver. The review further analyses adaptation pathways, including climate-smart agriculture, agroecological intensification, early warning systems, and climate-responsive social protection frameworks, while identifying critical financing gaps and governance failures that impede meaningful progress. Policy recommendations are explicitly linked to their supporting evidence and ranked by scalability and urgency.
Keywords: Extreme weather events; food insecurity; SDG 2 Zero Hunger; Global South; climate change adaptation; drought; tropical cyclones; climate-smart agriculture; Sub-Saharan Africa; compound climate risk; nutritional deficiency; climate finance; meta-analysis; evidence synthesis