Climate deal key to fight "devastating" hunger: U.N.

By Silvia Aloisi and Daniel Flynn

ROME (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday that agreeing a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger, which Brazil's president described as "the most devastating weapon of mass destruction."

Government leaders and officials met in Rome for a three-day U.N. summit on how to help developing countries feed themselves, but anti-poverty campaigners and even some participants were already writing off the event as a missed opportunity.

The sense of skepticism deepened at the weekend, when U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, though European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action.

"There can be no food security without climate security," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the summit.

"Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change," he said.

Africa, Asia and Latin America could see a decline of between 20 and 40 percent in agricultural productivity if temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, the U.N. says.

Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the hardest hit from global warming as its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed.

The number of hungry people in the world topped 1 billion for the first time this year due to the combined impact of the global recession and high food prices in poor countries. A child dies of malnutrition every six seconds.

"Hunger is the most devastating weapon of mass destruction on our planet, it doesn't kill soldiers, it kills innocent children who are not even one-year old," said Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization called the summit in the hope leaders would commit to raising the share of official aid spent on agriculture to 17 percent of the total -- its 1980 level -- from 5 percent now.

That would amount to $44 billion a year against $7.9 billion now. Farmers in rich countries receive $365 billion of support every year.

WHERE'S THE MONEY?

But the summit declaration adopted on Monday included only a general promise to pour more money into agricultural aid, with no target or timeframe for action.

Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a U.N. Millennium Development Goal to halve the number of hungry people by 2015 -- a deadline which most experts say is certain to be missed. They vowed to eradicate hunger "at the earliest possible date."

Last year's spike in the price of food staples such as rice and wheat sparked riots in as many as 60 countries.