Recipe for food insecurity

A powerful El Niño, extreme heat and disruption to global fertiliser supplies could combine to drive food shortages, price shocks and instability across the Indo-Pacific, with serious consequences for Australia.

The Indo-Pacific faces a potentially dangerous convergence of climate and food-system pressures. This paper examines a plausible 2026–27 scenario in which a powerful El Niño intensifies already elevated global temperatures, bringing extreme heat, drought and weaker monsoons across parts of Australia and Asia. At the same time, disruption to global fertiliser and energy supplies could reduce planting and crop yields and increase agricultural costs. Together, these pressures could significantly disrupt food production and drive shortages, food-price inflation and panic buying.

The consequences could extend well beyond agriculture. Food insecurity, lethal heat and economic pressures could contribute to humanitarian crises, social unrest, conflict and displacement across vulnerable countries in Australia’s region, while placing additional demands on Australian defence and emergency services. The paper argues that Australia is inadequately prepared for such cascading climate-security risks and calls for stronger regional food resilience, an Abrupt Climate Change Early Warning System, improved climate-threat intelligence and risk assessment, better-integrated climate research, and accelerated action to prevent climate risks escalating further.