A/70/287 I. Introduction 1. Climate change, sustainable resource management and food security are now widely considered to be among the most complex, interdependent and urgent global policy challenges. The world’s scientific community predicts that average temperatures will rise by 2° to 4°C by the end of the century, posing multiple threats to agricultural production. 2. Climate change is already having a significant impact on approximately one billion of the world’s poor. The most recent figures of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) suggest that some 795 million people are hungry; 1 without the implementation of serious measures to combat climate change, this figure could rise some 20 per cent by 2050. 2 3. The relationship between climate change and food systems is complex. Climate change has negative impacts on agriculture while current agricultural practices and food systems are responsible for harming the environment, affecting social and environmental determinants of health and accelerating human -induced climate change. Moreover, climate change is undermining the right to food, with disproportionate impacts on those who have contributed least to global warmi ng and are most vulnerable to its harmful effects. Urgent action must be taken to prevent climate change from intensifying, to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to its unavoidable effects. A policy shift is necessary to respond to the challeng es posed by climate change beyond mitigation and adaptation so as to respect peoples ’ human rights, including the right to food, while sustaining the Earth ’s renewable resources. 4. Although the threat posed by climate change to food security has been recognized by the global climate change regime, it has been cautious in its recognition of the need to adopt a human rights -based approach to addressing climate change. Gaps in the regime have already been identified, particularly in relation to the human rights implications of the clean development mechanism defined in article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries as well as of measures affecting energy, biofuels and adaptation. 5. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur wishes to emphasize the need to adopt a human rights-based approach to climate change governance as a means of overcoming climate injustices that vulnerable people are experiencing in relation to the right to food. In her conclusion, the Special Rapporteur notes that the standard discourse on climate change tends to overlook the fundamental relevance of climate justice and human rights considerations in shaping its recommended response to the policy challenges it poses. __________________ 1 2 15-10041 FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP), The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015: Meeting the 2015 International Hunger Targets: Taking Stock of Uneven Progress (Rome, 2015). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: Summary for Policymakers: Working Group II Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 3/25