Our warming world is leaving children hungry. New Zealand can change that.

“I’m sad and afraid,” says a student from Malmal Primary School in Papua New Guinea, “because we will no longer have coconuts for the future.”

It’s a simple statement, but it captures the growing fear across the Pacific: the fear of an empty table.

Climate change is not only reshaping coastlines and weather patterns; it’s reshaping how we eat, how we live, and childhood itself. When floods drown crops, when droughts turn soil to dust, when saltwater poisons gardens, children are the ones who eat less, learn less, and dream less. The climate crisis is fast becoming a hunger crisis, and the world is not ready.

Globally, more than 295 million people face acute food insecurity, including 18 million infants born deprived of essential nutrition. ¹ Nearly half of all deaths among children under five are linked to malnutrition.

World Vision’s recent analysis of the climate strategies for 84 countries and the European Union found that 80 percent of climate policies make no reference to child hunger or malnutrition. Most governments recognise hunger in general, but fewer than one in five recognise its specific and devastating impact on children. And a climate policy that leaves children out, is quite frankly a failed policy.

New Zealand’s own climate plans reflect this oversight. Our Nationally Determined Contribution, ² our climate action plan submitted under the Paris Agreement, acknowledges that nearly half of our emissions come from agriculture, but does not once mention hunger, food security, or malnutrition. It treats food production as an economic issue, rather than a human one. While our climate adaptation plan ³ discusses innovation in food production and industry resilience, they skim over efforts to ensure every child in Aotearoa New Zealand has enough to eat in a changing climate. Nowhere do these plans confront the disproportionate toll of food insecurity on children.

And hunger is already a daily reality in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Salvation Army’s latest report ⁴ found that one in four New Zealand households with children experience food insecurity. Among Māori and Pacific whānau, it’s one in two. This is the highest rate in a decade, a doubling in just two years. Aotearoa New Zealand exports enough food to feed 40 million people, yet far too many of our own children go to school without breakfast. It’s a cruel paradox which highlights the fact that food insecurity is not about supply, but fairness.

Unsurprisingly, in World Vision’s analysis of climate plans and their response to hunger ranks New Zealand third worst of all countries assessed, a startling result for a nation with both the resources and responsibility to act. And especially for one already facing serious food security challenges.

The Government recently weakened methane reduction targets to “protect food production.” Yet, real protection means safeguarding the future of food itself. Food security depends not only on maintaining current supply, but on ensuring that everyone, especially children, can access affordable, nutritious food no matter what lies ahead. If we fail to make our food systems climate-resilient and child-centred, a warming world will threaten both farmers’ livelihoods and the family dinner. Having enough food is a human right.

Our Pacific neighbours are already adapting food systems by rebuilding gardens, reviving traditional crops, and restoring reefs. Our analysis shows that they treat hunger and malnutrition as a more serious issues than New Zealand’s approach. What they need now are partners, not bystanders. When New Zealand ensures every child within our shores is well nourished, we strengthen our credibility to act alongside Pacific nations and meet the same standards we expect of others, thereby demonstrating that climate and food justice begin at home.

At COP30 this month, New Zealand has the opportunity to show this leadership with heart. We can start by embedding child hunger and nutrition into our climate policies, using child-specific indicators such as stunting and wasting to measure progress. We also can commit to increasing our overseas climate change aid and directing more funding toward nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient programmes in the Pacific.

Every child deserves the food they need to grow and learn. Every government has a duty to protect that right. By placing children at the centre of our climate response, we invest in resilience, equity, and peace, giving us a future in which no child is left hungry.

Read the full report here.