Advancing double-duty actions to address the dual threat of climate change and malnutrition

Climate change is one of the most urgent challenges to human health. It has especially important impacts on how food is produced and what we eat. Climate change can harm the food system through its effect on extreme weather events and natural disasters, leading to reduced access to healthy and affordable food for all, which sometimes is replaced by cheaper ultra-processed food alternatives. This can lead to the so-called "double burden of malnutrition", where the same populations, households, or individuals simultaneously suffer from both undernutrition, such as inadequate intake of nutrients or low weight and height in children, and overnutrition, such as overweight and obesity. At the same time, the food system is an important contributor to climate change, being responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Peru is a country that is vulnerable to different climate change effects because of its diverse geomorphology that includes coastal areas, the Andean highlands, and the Amazonian jungle. Peru also faces a high and unequal level of the double burden of malnutrition. For example, overweight is increasing most rapidly in rural areas where undernutrition is also the most prevalent. While Peru has previously undertaken steps to reduce undernutrition and overnutrition separately, these have not considered how to address their co-existence or how to mitigate the impact of climate change on this double burden. By ignoring this co-existence, there is a risk that existing actions that target one of these issues will have unintended consequences to the others. This fellowship will use innovative approaches that allow the investigation of climate change and the double burden of malnutrition as co-existent components of the same problem. It invests in working closely with local stakeholders, who will play a significant role in understanding the interactions between climate change and the double burden of malnutrition in Peru and producing effective solutions. First, I will work with international and Peruvian stakeholders to map the drivers of the food system that simultaneously contribute to climate change and the double burden of malnutrition in Peru and internationally. I will use existing data to quantify these associations at regional and international level. I will combine stakeholder inputs and relevant data to develop a tool (system dynamics model) that can be used by stakeholders to understand the impacts of different policies on climate change and the double burden of malnutrition. I will guide stakeholders to use this tool and co-develop so-called 'double-duty actions', meaning actions that concurrently target both climate change and the double burden of malnutrition. This fellowship is characterised by the active involvement of community stakeholders in three areas in Peru (Lima, Loreto, Huancavelica) throughout all its stages. These will include policymakers at national and local level, researchers and health practitioners, local organisers and NGOs, and community members that are directly impacted by climate change and the double burden of malnutrition, such as parents or farmers. Through their active and long-term engagement with the project, they will ensure that the project responds to local priorities, and they are more likely to be empowered to advocate and implement change.