Background <p>Ethiopia’s food security is significantly affected by climatic risks and is largely dependent on rain fed agriculture, which is susceptible to fluctuations in rainfall as well as variations in temperature and carbon emissions.</p> Objective <p>The objective of the study was to analyze the impact of climate change on food security in Ethiopia.</p> Methods <p>The study utilized time series data covering the period 1993–2023. An autoregressive distributed lag model was employed to analyze the effect of climate change on food security, because of mixed integration orders of integration. The model was re-parameterized into an error correction model to establish the long-term and short-term relationships among the variables.</p> Key findings <p>The findings of the study indicated a strong positive correlation between carbon dioxide emissions, arable land, fertilizer consumption, cereal production, and livestock production with food production index, both in the long run and short run. In addition, the study highlighted a significant negative impact of temperature in the long run and a negative influence of population growth in the short run, also at a 1% significance level.</p> Policy implications <p>To mitigate the effects of rising temperatures, government and stakeholders should implement targeted policies that focusing on technological innovations address changes in temperatures, thereby enhancing food production. Furthermore, the implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies concerning climate changes in both the short and long run.</p> Novelty statement <p>The study addresses the nexus between climate change (proxied by CO₂ emission and changes in Temperature) and food security (aproxied by food production index) using time series dataset. This contribution is unique in its methods and focus of food security as rooted in to food production.</p>