Without coordinated action, this year’s “crisis of affordability” threatens to become a dire global food shortage in 2023, the UN chief told the G20 Summit in Indonesia on Tuesday.

“Simultaneously, we are witnessing a crunch in the global fertilizer market”, he continued, highlighting once again the Black Sea Grain Initiative to export vital food supplies from Ukraine, and fertilizers from Russia.

He reminded that his call for a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Stimulus aimed to provide those countries with adequate liquidity by reallocating supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets called Special Drawing Rights; concessional financing to Middle Income Countries in distress; and effective mechanisms of debt relief and restructuring.

“Changing weather patterns, droughts and storms are disrupting crop cycles and fisheries”, he told the G20, pointing out that “80% of global emissions are sitting around this table”.

In a meeting with the press prior to the UN Climate Change Conference 2022 (COP27), scheduled to take place through November 18 in Egypt, Guterres pointed out that the work pending in this area is gigantic, while collective commitments come too late and are too few.

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