PARIS: Global warming and heatwaves are expected to further increase food prices and overall inflation around the world in the future, according to a new study by scientists and the European Central Bank. The impact will vary but will be felt everywhere, especially in developing countries, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Communication, Earth and Environment.
As the climate warms, extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, and floods are occurring more frequently, hitting key sectors of the economy such as agriculture and food production. In the new study, researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the European Central Bank used historical price and weather data for 121 countries from 1996 to 2021.
Researchers found that rising temperatures due to climate change are projected to increase global food prices by 1.49 to 1.79 percentage points annually by 2035.
The impact of future warming and extreme heat on overall inflation is between 0.76 and 0.91 percentage points under best- and worst-case scenarios. Maximilian Kotz, one of the authors of the PIK report, told AFP: “Increasing temperatures, especially in summer and in hot places, will cause price increases, primarily in food inflation, but also in overall inflation. We have found strong evidence that this is the case.”
Kotz said the impact of future warming on food prices and inflation would be most pronounced in “already hot regions” of the world, especially poorer developing regions.
The study found that the most affected continents are Africa and South America. But higher prices are inevitable as a result of extreme weather in the northern hemisphere, Kotz said.
“In those parts of the northern hemisphere, such things will occur primarily in the summer, whereas in other parts of the world it will occur more widely throughout the year,” he said.
However, they did not find that global warming had a significant impact on other household costs other than electricity. Kotz said this is “quite consistent” with other studies that have demonstrated that agriculture is particularly susceptible to climate change, and that the study also predicted large-scale expansion across Europe in summer 2022. It also found that the heatwave may have caused food inflation to rise by 0.67 percentage points, it said. “Future climate change is likely to amplify the magnitude of these extreme heat events, thereby amplifying their potential impact on inflation,” the report said. —AFP
