C1327 words2:07News Report American AccentPublished Jun 21, 2026 · Updated Jun 21, 2026

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The United Nations World Food Programme and its agriculture agency have issued a joint global appeal for emergency funding to combat a looming hunger crisis driven by the return of El Niño.

Officials cautioned that the cyclical weather phenomenon, which scientists first linked to devastating droughts and extreme weather in the 1970s, could this time inflict even more severe consequences on food security worldwide.

Rarely has the international community faced such a convergence of climate risk and agricultural vulnerability.

El Niño, named by Pacific fishers in the 1800s, is characterised by abnormal warming of ocean surface temperatures that disrupts weather patterns across continents.

The 1972-73 episode, for instance, warmed Peruvian coastal waters so dramatically that it collapsed the world's largest anchovy fishery.

That same event brought harsh drought to South Asia, the Sahel, and parts of East Africa, compounding an oil crisis that deepened global hunger.

Were governments to underestimate the current threat, the humanitarian fallout could dwarf previous episodes.

Adugna Woyessa, an Ethiopian epidemiologist at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, has studied El Niño's devastating effects since childhood.

As a boy in the early 1970s, he witnessed drought ravage his country's harvests while his school converted a classroom into a grain store.

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He has since argued that nutrition is fundamental to a population's capacity to withstand the cascading health consequences of extreme weather, including malaria epidemics.

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His research emphasised that proactive intervention, rather than reactive aid, is essential for vulnerable communities.

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Historically, El Niño has triggered political upheaval alongside environmental catastrophe.

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In Ethiopia during the 1970s, widespread protests against the emperor's mishandling of famine ultimately facilitated a military coup that ushered in a communist dictatorship.

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Such precedents underscore why the current global appeal demands urgent attention.

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Not only does El Niño threaten crop yields and fisheries, but it also destabilises entire political systems in regions already grappling with poverty.

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The question remains whether the international community will mobilise sufficient resources before this crisis escalates beyond containment.

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El Niño is back with a vengeance – and fears of ‘Godzilla’ strength may be the least of our worries

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