Address by Minister Dion to the APEC Ministerial Meeting on climate change and food security in the Asia-Pacific region

Ending hunger in the era of climate change and water stress

November 17, 2016 - Lima, Peru

Check against delivery. This speech has been translated in accordance with the Government of Canada’s official languages policy and edited for posting and distribution in accordance with its communications policy.

Peru could not have chosen a better priority topic for all of us than food security, which is without any doubt one of the critical challenges of the 21st century.

The Asia-Pacific region has made great strides in addressing chronic hunger and malnutrition in the past decades, but there is much to do. The international community committed to ambitious goals, nothing less than ending hunger for the world by 2030. This is one of the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals]—goal number two. And at APEC, we call for the region to reduce food loss and waste by 10 percent by 2020 in APEC’s Food Security Roadmap.

The only way to achieve this ambitious APEC goal is by working together right away to pull together our resources, our skills and our ideas. Because the challenges we are facing are tremendous.

The FAO—Food and Agriculture Organization—has said that almost 800 million people in the world are chronically hungry today. It has also said that population growth and diet change will increase food needs by 60 percent by 2050. And, yet, the FAO has said that climate change is already putting stress on food systems and rural livelihoods all around the world.

Global climate models predict that gradually rising temperature, changing precipitation patterns and other shifts caused by climate change will greatly affect food production in the Asia-Pacific region in the coming decades. And, indeed, throughout the world.

Extreme weather events such as droughts are more common than in the past and are more severely affecting populations all over the world and reducing harvests, including in the Asia-Pacific region.

Over the past couple of years, El Niño has been exacerbating these impacts and creating extremely dry conditions contributing to food insecurity.

The challenge is twofold: increase food production for a growing population while considerably reducing the impact of agricultural practices on the climate.

There is the challenge of agriculture, but above all there is the challenge of the oceans, a key source of life and sustenance.

More than ever, Pacific Ocean fisheries and aquaculture—important elements of the blue economy—need our attention. They are under threat from acidification, the dumping of waste, toxic chemical runoffs, marine litter and plastic debris.

Global fish stocks are depleted, yet we continue to overfish. We have to act now, otherwise we will be the last generation to do so. This is why we all must support the United States’ proposal to overcome barriers to financing waste management in our oceans.

Canada will be there all the way. We have the longest coastline in the world. Our motto is “from coast to coast to coast.”

We will be there to support research, development and the appropriate use of safe and science-based technologies and products to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change on our lands and in our oceans.

Canada was pleased to see the Paris Agreement come into force November 4 [2016] and is actively working toward implementation at home. We are also providing $2.65 billion in climate financing, some of it to support agriculture and fisheries-related projects.

There is a tremendous opportunity to reduce emissions in APEC economies, Canada included, given that the Asia-Pacific region consumes 60 percent of the world’s energy and includes China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

We will also need to take steps to ensure that the Asia-Pacific region’s infrastructure is resilient with regard to climate change impacts such as extreme weather events.

Now we need to sustain momentum and accelerate action. Canada will be there, but we need you. Ending hunger in 2030 is an ambitious and necessary goal that cannot be achieved if we work in isolation. We need a plan of action, and you can count on Canada.

Contacts

Chantal Gagnon
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
343-203-1851
chantal.gagnon@international.gc.ca

Media Relations Office
Global Affairs Canada
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