Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the impact of climate change on global food production, and (2) the potential for mass migration from areas where food supply has failed owing to climate change.

1) The Climate Change Committee's Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk (CRIA) offers a detailed and up to date insight into the growing risks and opportunities the UK faces from climate change. The report provides evidence for risks to UK food availability, safety, and quality from the impact of climate change on global food production and supply chains.

The CRIA will inform our third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), due for publication in January 2022, which states our position relative to such advice and marks the formal end of the third CCRA cycle. This evidence will be indispensable in informing greater action and ambition in the third National Adaptation Programme (a five-yearly requirement under the UK Climate Change Act 2008), which will set out how the government will address climate risks.

In the 2021 policy paper "Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy", the Government made tackling climate change and biodiversity loss its number one international priority.

(2) The UK recognises the need to better understand the complex links between migration, climate change and environmental degradation to inform our policy and action. The Government has commissioned an assessment of existing evidence of how climate change impacts migration to support this dialogue.

The UK is also supporting countries with adaptation and resilience planning through major international climate funds such as the Green Climate Fund and programme funding.[1]

We are fulfilling our pledge to attain the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction through our contributions to the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership. Through this, the UK is leading the way in scaling up early-warning systems to make 1 billion people safer from disaster by 2025.

We have also supported the efforts for the establishment of a High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, which will look at climate change as a compounding factor contributing to internal displacement. The High-Level Panel submitted a report to the United Nations Secretary General in September with recommendations on how to resolve and prevent further displacement, including through adaption.

[1] We also fund Climate Investment Funds and Global Environmental Facility.