THE price of taking no action in Paris has been laid out in a new website from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and the Met Office.

The Food Insecurity and Climate Change Vulnerability Map shows how exposed each country on earth is to hunger and malnutrition. The website then predicts what this exposure would look like in 2050, and then 2080, depending on the level of carbon emissions, and what mitigation of the effect of climate change is achieved.

If emissions remain high, and adaptation efforts are frustrated, by 2080 the map turns most of Africa, Southern Asia, and South America a dark shade of red, which indicates the highest vulnerability to food insecurity.

Conversely, if by 2080 emissions have been cut and there has been significant adaptation, most of Asia and Latin America brightens to a pale yellow, suggesting famine and hunger would be unlikely, with Africa a middling orange shade.

“This map paints a stark picture of how climate disasters drive hunger,” the WFP executive director, Ertharin Cousin, said. “In Paris, we must decide between a future world where ending hunger is achievable — or one where we and every future generation continue this losing struggle responding to the scourge of global hunger.”

Climate disasters tend to affect those vulnerable to hunger disproportionately, by destroying land used for crops, livestock, and food supplies. The WFP is committed to ending world hunger by 2030, but has warned that climate change will make that target hard to hit.

Explore the WFP website here