The United Nation has issued an urgent warning that the world must prepare for extreme heat as El Niño returns in 2026, posing a severe threat to global food security for the next nine months. The World Meteorological Organization forecast on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, a moderate or possibly strong El Niño that could drive up global temperatures and increase the risk of extreme weather over the coming months. This natural climate phenomenon, characterized by warming of tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, will exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall while increasing heatwave risks both on land and in the ocean. With an 80% likelihood of El Niño forming before September and a 90% chance it will continue through November, the global community faces a critical window for preparedness.
This Analysis reveals how the convergence of El Niño with ongoing climate change creates unprecedented challenges for agricultural production, food prices, and human health across every continent. The stakes extend beyond meteorological interest to the fundamental question of whether hundreds of millions of people will have adequate food and water in the months ahead.
The Science Behind This Year’s El Niño Forecast
The conditions fueling this El Niño event are already visible in the tropical Pacific Ocean, where sub-surface temperatures have exceeded 6°C above average. The US Climate Prediction Center reports that the odds of El Niño forming by the end of July have climbed to 82%. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo emphasized the urgency in a statement that captures the gravity of the situation:
“We need to prepare for a potentially strong El Niño event, which will exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean.”
What makes this forecast particularly concerning is the possibility of a Super El Niño, a very strong event that has a 67% chance of occurring according to recent analysis. The last El Niño event in 2023-2024 was the fifth-most powerful on record and contributed to making 2024 the hottest year in recorded history, with global temperatures 1.28°C above the 20th-century baseline and 1.47°C above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists warn that the emerging El Niño could push global temperatures even higher. There is an 86% chance that coming years will smash 2024’s heat record, with 2027 potentially becoming the hottest year humanity has ever experienced. A strong El Niño could push the planet past the critical 1.5°C warming threshold, while even a moderate El Niño could drive temperatures to 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels. Celeste Saulo further warned that extreme heat represents an escalating crisis:
“Extreme heat is already one of the most lethal climate threats we face, and an El Niño could heighten this danger. Communities that were already struggling will be pushed farther beyond their limits.”
The WMO agency itself stressed the preventive capacity of early warning systems, noting that
“Advance seasonal forecasts and early warnings are vital to save lives and cushion the impact on our economies and our communities. The time for informed decision-making, planning and preparedness is now.”
Regional Impact Patterns: Where Food Security Faces Greatest Risk
El Niño’s impact on global food security stems from its ability to disrupt rainfall patterns across continents, bringing too much rain in some places and too little in others. The phenomenon will create drier, hotter conditions across Australia, Indonesia, Central America, South Asia, and southern Africa. These regions face severe drought conditions that will directly impact agricultural production and threaten the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers.
The impact on staple crops is particularly alarming. Researchers studying previous El Niño events note that Latin America is particularly vulnerable to food insecurity thanks to the current El Niño cycle. In Colombia alone, where rice is a key staple crop, adverse El Niño effects caused a drop of up to 89 percent in rice yields in some harvesting areas, along with a 9.5 percent increase in irrigation requirements. Over 800,000 people in rural Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela were exposed to drought in 2023, with diminished harvests expected to cause food insecurity into late 2024 and 2025.
Southern Africa faces similar challenges, with El Niño likely to bring poor maize yields due to drought. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network projects that 105-110 million people across 31 countries will need food assistance through at least early 2024 as a result of conflict, weather, and economic shocks. This represents one of the largest food security crises in recent history, driven largely by climate-related weather patterns.
Conversely, El Niño will deliver increased rainfall and flooding to Southern South America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa, and Central Asia. While increased rainfall in the eastern Horn of Africa and Afghanistan is expected to support crop production and improve water access, excessive rain can batter winter growing regions and damage crops before harvest. Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and North Africa has already battered the winter growing regions that feed millions, contributing to food inflation strikes in 2026.
The interconnected nature of global agriculture amplifies El Niño’s impact across borders and continents. As researchers explained,
“The global nature of the phenomenon makes it worse, as larger agricultural countries like India are also not producing at the usual rate, with droughts and heat waves making production more expensive.”
This global synchronization of poor harvests means that cushion reserves from other regions cannot easily compensate for local failures, creating a perfect storm of supply constraints.
The Human Cost: Heat Deaths and Health Emergencies
Beyond agricultural impacts, El Niño will intensify the deadliest climate risk of our time. Extreme heat claims 489,000 deaths annually worldwide, more than floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires combined. Heat-related deaths have surged over 50% in the past two decades in the United States alone, reflecting the accelerating pace of climate-related health emergencies.
The World Health Organization warns that heatstroke is a medical emergency with a high-case fatality rate, and the number of people exposed to extreme heat is growing exponentially due to climate change. While cold remains a dominant risk, heat is becoming increasingly dangerous as extreme heat events grow more frequent and intense, particularly in urban areas where the heat island effect compounds the problem.
El Niño also facilitates the wider spread of vector-borne diseases carried by mosquitoes and ticks, compounding health challenges in already vulnerable communities. Reduced food and water supplies create malnutrition risks that further weaken immune systems, making populations more susceptible to infectious diseases. This cascading effect means that climate disasters create secondary health crises that persist long after the initial weather event passes.
The Perfect Storm: When El Niño Meets Climate Change
What distinguishes this El Niño from historical events is its interaction with ongoing climate change. The 2023-2024 El Niño event, exacerbated by the climate change crisis, will likely raise average global temperatures beyond previous records. Scientists warn that developing El Niño patterns could lock Earth into a hotter climate for years to come, creating a feedback loop that accelerates warming beyond natural variability.
The effects hit continents as well as oceans, intensifying rainstorms and flooding in some regions while amplifying extreme heat, drought, and wildfires in others. This multi-hazard approach means communities face simultaneous challenges: heat stress, water scarcity, crop failures, and disease outbreaks all occurring together, overwhelming local capacity to respond.
Europe should brace for more extreme heat, with some areas at heightened risk of drought and flooding. Over the past week, parts of Western Europe suffered record-breaking spring temperatures as a powerful heat dome formed. Scientists warn that spells like this are likely to become more intense, longer and more frequent as El Niño takes hold, and it could stretch all the way to 2028, creating a prolonged period of climate stress for the continent.
Food Security Implications: From Local Shortages to Global Price Shocks
Of particular concern is the effect on agricultural production and food prices, particularly breadbasket staples such as wheat, maize, and rice. El Niño’s global impacts are complex and multifaceted, potentially affecting the lives of the majority of the world’s population through food price inflation and supply disruptions. The United Nation has emphasized that food security is not just a humanitarian concern but a matter of global stability and economic security.
While the global supply and prices of most food is unlikely to move dramatically, the evidence from ten El Niño events in the past five decades suggests relatively modest price impacts on average. However, local effects could be severe, particularly in regions already experiencing food insecurity. Even a moderate El Niño may significantly affect crops grown in geographically concentrated regions, for example, palm oil, which primarily comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, could face substantial production shortfalls.
Because most countries are connected via trade, El Niño will have wider economic impacts beyond direct crop failures. It could still lead to deeper societal issues in some regions, such as famine and agro-pastoral conflicts over shrinking resources. Iran war-related food inflation already threatens 2026 food prices, with El Niño posing fresh risks on top of existing inflationary pressures that are already straining household budgets worldwide.
Coface’s forecasts point to major uncertainties for certain agricultural commodities including cereals, sugar, palm oil, and citrus fruit in the medium term, along with significant risks for food security in certain regions of the world. The impact on the agricultural sector will be particularly visible in 2024, as commodity yields are highly dependent on weather conditions that are increasingly unpredictable and extreme.
In March 2024, rice prices were almost a third higher than the previous March, according to the World Bank, which attributed this rise to El Niño-induced production shortfalls and export restrictions imposed by India in 2023. As of May 2026, 70% of U.S. winter wheat production was in areas of drought, along with 25% of corn production, according to the National Drought Monitor, signaling potential price increases ahead.
Commodity Market Volatility and Economic Consequences
The business community is already accounting for El Niño’s anticipated impact on commodity markets. Hein Schumacher, CEO of Barry Callebaut, one of the world’s largest cocoa processors, provided a sobering industry perspective on the economic stakes:
“This is something that we are very cautiously observing. El Niño could have an effect that could lead to, you know, a few thousands per tonne.”
His warning carries particular weight because cocoa crops in Ecuador and West Africa account for 60% of global cocoa output, meaning regional weather patterns have global price implications.
Cocoa futures illustrate the market’s anxiety about upcoming harvests. Trading at £2,944/S$5,070 per tonne, cocoa prices have fallen dramatically from £9,000+ in April 2024, yet volatility remains high as markets price in El Niño uncertainty. This price volatility creates planning challenges for both producers and consumers, making it difficult to invest in long-term agricultural infrastructure when future returns are so uncertain.
Paul Donovan, Chief Economist at UBS, provided a broader economic perspective on water scarcity’s role in driving food prices: “Drought and limited water supply might be more important than shortages” of fertilizer in the case of a super El Niño event. His analysis suggests that water scarcity, not just crop failures, will drive food security challenges, as irrigation becomes impossible in drought-stricken regions regardless of fertilizer availability.
Historical data supports these concerns about sustained price pressure. The European Central Bank’s analysis suggests that global food commodity prices could rise by up to 9% if current El Niño conditions develop into a strong El Niño. This price increase would peak 16 months after the strong El Niño episode begins, creating sustained pressure on food affordability that will outlast the weather phenomenon itself.
The United Nation’s Call for Climate Action and Preparedness
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a stark assessment that frames El Niño within the broader climate crisis:
“The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is. El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world.”
He called for an immediate shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, emphasizing that El Niño’s effects are being amplified by human-induced climate change and that the solution requires addressing root causes, not just symptoms.
The United Nation’s messaging underscores that El Niño is not merely a natural weather pattern but a climate emergency intensified by decades of greenhouse gas emissions. This reframing is crucial because it shifts the conversation from passive acceptance of weather variability to active intervention on climate change.
With El Niño expected from mid-2026 and impacting global temperature and rainfall patterns through November, the international community has a narrow window for action. The WMO community will be carefully monitoring conditions in the coming months to inform decision-making at national and local levels. As Celeste Saulo emphasized, communities already struggling will be pushed farther beyond their limits. The time for informed decision-making, planning, and preparedness is now, not when temperatures spike or crops begin failing, but today, while advance forecasts still provide actionable intelligence for governments, businesses, and households.
The convergence of El Niño with human-induced climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to global food security. With 489,000 annual heat deaths, 110 million people needing food assistance, and food commodity prices potentially rising 9%, the stakes extend far beyond meteorological interest. The United Nation has made clear that the world must treat El Niño as the urgent climate warning it is, accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy while simultaneously investing in agricultural resilience, early warning systems, and social safety nets for the most vulnerable populations.
This Analysis demonstrates that El Niño is not simply a weather event but a multiplier of existing vulnerabilities in the global food system. The next nine months will test whether the international community can translate warnings into action before heatwaves, droughts, and floods transform forecasts into human suffering on a massive scale. The window for preparedness is closing, and the cost of inaction will be measured in lost harvests, rising prices, and preventable deaths across every continent.
