The recent International Panel on Climate Change special report on extreme weather and climate change presented a stark warning: extreme weather events are already on the rise and failure to take urgent action to reduce emissions will likely lead to an increase in the intensity and frequency of such events in future. This Oxfam media brief documents some of the devastating impacts extreme weather events have had on global, regional and local food security in 2010-11, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people in poverty. Our failure to cope with the climate variability and shocks of today, presents a daunting outlook for food security tomorrow in a world of unchecked climate change. For governments around the world this serves as an urgent call to act at the UN climate talks in Durban if the extreme weather events witnessed in 2010-11 are not to be a grim foretaste of future suffering and hunger.