The head of the U.S. food agency warned on Tuesday that climate change could trigger a humanitarian crisis in North Korea.

World Food Program(WFP) Executive Director David Beasley sounded the alarm in a keynote speech for a forum organized online by the South Korean Unification Ministry.

Beasley said the risk has grown that many North Koreans will starve amid abnormal weather events such as droughts, floods and tropical cyclones. 

He argued that such factors could significantly raise the number of victims of hunger and malnutrition in the country and lead to a humanitarian crisis. 

Noting how the recent reopening of schools in the North made it more important to provide nutrition for North Korean children, the WFP chief emphasized international cooperation to improve food security in the North and hoped for continuous cooperation with Seoul on that matter.