The World at a Breaking Point: How Geopolitics, Climate Collapse and Food Insecurity Are Forging a Global Emergency.

By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by saharaweeklyng.com

“Why the G20 can no longer tinker at the edges – it must act boldly and now.”

“GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONS, GLOBAL WARMING, PANDEMICS, ENERGY and FOOD INSECURITY jeopardise our collective future.” Those were not idle words from President Cyril Ramaphosa at the opening of the G20 Leaders Summit in Johannesburg; they were an urgent alarm bell for a global order fraying at the seams. South Africa’s presidency put its finger on what every honest analyst, humanitarian and climate scientist already knows, multiple, interacting crises are converging to create a cascade of risk that threatens lives, economies and the political stability of entire regions.

This is not hyperbole. The world is seeing an uncomfortable and brutal arithmetic: geopolitical conflict and economic fragmentation reduce the flow of goods, cut investment and corrode cooperation; climate change undermines harvests, water supplies and coastal livelihoods; and food insecurity (driven by war, weather shocks and runaway inflation) is spiking in the places least able to cope. The UN-led State of Food Security and Nutrition report and contemporaneous UN analyses show that hundreds of millions remain undernourished and that while global hunger edged down overall, it rose sharply in much of Africa and western Asia. That divergence is lethal and politically combustible.

The mechanics of the crisis are simple and merciless. Geopolitical tensions (trade wars, sanctions, blockades and military conflict) rip apart integrated supply chains that keep food, fertiliser and energy moving. When ports close, fertiliser becomes scarce and grain prices spike. When currencies collapse under the weight of sanctions or poor macroeconomic policy, millions lose the purchasing power to buy calories. At the same time, climate extremes (drought, floods, heatwaves) are reducing yields and increasing volatility in staple food production, consuming resilience faster than it can be rebuilt. The latest scientific syntheses make plain that warming and its knock-on effects are not some distant threat but an immediate multiplier of instability.

Experts who study planetary risk are not whispering, they are shouting warnings. Professor Johan Rockström, a leading authority on planetary boundaries, has repeatedly warned that transgressing critical Earth system thresholds risks irreversible, accelerating changes; the very “TIPPING POINT’S” that would cascade into mass crop failures, ecosystem collapse and mass displacement. “The tipping element that worries me most is coral reef systems,” Rockström has said and that is not just an environmental lament; coral reefs underpin fisheries and coastal protection for hundreds of millions of people. When ecosystems fail, livelihoods vanish overnight.

Humanitarian leaders echo this urgency. At the launch of the 2024–25 global food report, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain bluntly stated that “one thing is very clear, the world is badly OFF-TRACK in our efforts to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030.” That failure is not a statistic; it is a moral indictment of global choices: insufficient financing, a shortfall of multilateral cooperation, and a failure to insulate vulnerable countries from shocks. The Global Report on Food Crises and related UN assessments put numbers to the suffering: in 2024, crisis-level acute food insecurity affected tens of millions more people than the year before, with conflict and climate extremes the main drivers.

So what does this mean for governance at the G20 and for global leaders who can still shape outcomes? First, the era of incrementalism is over. Patchwork measures and symbolic statements will not stabilise food systems in the face of simultaneous geopolitical and climatic shocks. The G20 must mobilise large, guaranteed financing for adaptive agriculture, targeted social protection, emergency food reserves and rapid fertiliser distribution mechanisms that bypass geopolitical chokepoints. It must also create contingency credit lines and debt-service suspensions that prevent vulnerable states from choosing between feeding their people and paying creditors. The evidence is clear: well-targeted social protection and local agricultural investment are among the most cost-effective ways to reduce hunger and build resilience.

Second, climate action has to be reframed as a security imperative, not merely an emissions accounting exercise. The IPCC’s synthesis makes this plain: unmitigated warming amplifies risks across agriculture, water, health and migration; every fraction of a degree matters for harvest reliability. That is why developing countries must receive immediate and predictable finance for adaptation; not loan-based stopgaps, but grants and concessional financing for climate-smart irrigation, soil restoration, seed systems and disaster-proof storage and transport. Without it, the Global South will continue to pay the price for emissions it did little to cause.

Third, the G20 must reopen the playbook on cooperation. The fragmentation of global governance (boycotts, unilateral sanctions and self-interested blocs) reduces the capacity for joint action where it counts most: humanitarian corridors, collective purchasing of critical inputs, and deconflicted maritime and land corridors for trade. The Johannesburg summit’s adoption of a leaders’ declaration despite diplomatic friction is a positive sign, but words must translate into mechanisms: grain and fertiliser de-risking facilities, coordinated early warning systems, and a G20 compact to stabilise critical commodity markets during geopolitical shocks.

Finally, the moral argument must become operational policy. Development economists remind us that famines and mass hunger are often political choices enabled by governance failures. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has long argued that democracy, information transparency and entitlements prevent famines; in the present context, global institutions must protect those entitlements across borders by guaranteeing aid flows, supporting local markets and opposing weaponised scarcity. The time for blaming is over; the time for binding, enforceable compacts to protect food systems and essential supplies is now.

This is not a plea for naïve optimism, nor is it a call to surrender national interest. It is a demand for sober realism: the alternative to action is disorder. We are already seeing localized political instability linked directly to food and fuel spikes; we will see more unless the G20 and every major economy treat climate adaptation, food security and conflict de-escalation as a unified emergency program. If multilateral institutions are to retain legitimacy, they must be capable of delivering rapid, predictable assistance precisely when markets and geopolitics fail.

President Ramaphosa was correct to frame the summit around “PEOPLE, PLANET and PROSPERITY.” Though correct framing without decisive instruments is mere rhetoric. The Johannesburg G20 can be remembered either as the moment the world began to stitch back the frayed fabric of global cooperation, or as yet another summit where urgent warnings dissolved into bland communiqués. Policymakers, financiers and civil society now face a stark choice: treat these converging crises as separate policy silos, or confront them together as the systemic emergency they are. History will judge us by which path we choose.

If we have learned anything from the last decade, it is that crises compound. To avoid a future where food shortages, climate collapse and geopolitical fracture become permanent features of the international system, the G20 must act with the scale, speed and solidarity that this moment demands. Anything less is an act of negligence and the price will be paid in human lives and shattered nations.

George Omagbemi Sylvester is a contributing writer. This piece is published by saharaweeklyng.com.