North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un Blames Food Shortages and Flooding on Climate Change

Kim Jong Un has singled out climate change as the main culprit in the food shortages and flooding that have been afflicting North Korea.

The North Korean dictator presided over a Politburo meeting last Thursday and stressed the importance of implementing measures to combat climate change. To that end, he has instructed his officials to come up with an “active and ambitious plan” focused on land and flood management, river improvement, reforestation, dike maintenance, and tide embankment projects.

Kim said at the meeting that “disastrous weather” is becoming “ever more pronounced worldwide,” according to the Korean Central News Agency, with North Korea “lying vulnerable to its danger.”

“The viewpoint and attitude on land management is directly linked with the attitude of defending the [Workers’ Party of Korea] and the revolution and the attitude of loving the state and the people [amid this situation],” wrote the KCNA, paraphrasing Kim’s remarks.

The Korean Peninsula’s monsoon and typhoon season typically lasts from mid-June to September. It is not uncommon for heavy rains and flooding to severely damage crops and infrastructure, especially in a state as impoverished as North Korea.

As for the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim called on his officials to “reexamine the national epidemic prevention system” and “conduct an intense political offensive to strain and awaken the epidemic prevention front once again.” He said at the Politburo meeting that the pandemic “keeps spiraling out of control” and requires a strict nationwide response.

Shipments of Sinovac and AstraZeneca COVID vaccines to North Korea have been delayed, however, and Kim has elected to keep North Korea’s borders closed despite severe economic conditions. The North Korean regime has insisted the country has not had any COVID cases over the past 18 months, but that is almost certainly not a credible claim.

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