This week’s ongoing flooding in key farm regions of the midwest is only a small part of a larger story.
You’ve heard perhaps, that CO2 is good for plants? Turns out there’s other factors as well.
Copernicus, the EU’s climate monitoring body, said in April that Europe is increasingly facing “bouts of heat so intense that the human body cannot cope, as climate change continues to raise temperatures.”
That includes countries like Spain and Italy, the largest and second largest producers of olive oil, respectively. Spain alone accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s production, but both are facing supply strains sending the costs of olive oil skyrocketing.
Pulla said those shocks have Canadian consumers feeling the pinch.
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According to a 2022 report, two-thirds of the world’s calories come from four staple foods: wheat, rice, maize and soybeans. At least 72 per cent of these crops are grown in just five countries: China, the United States, India, Brazil and Argentina. A climate catastrophe in any one or more of these countries could send the entire world into a food crisis, the report said.
“Climate change increases the likelihood of global ‘synchronized’ production shocks – multiple major staple food producing and exporting countries facing simultaneous crop shortfalls simultaneously,” the report said.
The report said wheat – 65 per cent of which is produced in water-scarce environments – will be the most vulnerable of all the major staples.
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“We’re seeing a lot of farmers this year questioning if they can stay in farming just because the weather is becoming so extreme and so unpredictable,” she said.
“In the past 13 years in my area, there’s been the worst two droughts of the past 100 years and the worst two floods.”
Popping prices for a pantry staple might seem like just another example of hard-to-digest inflation. But economists say there could be another culprit behind certain price spikes, one that will only become more influential in the coming years: climate change. That’s especially the case when every month so far this year has been the hottest ever. June — marked by a sweltering heat wave for much of the country — seems likely to set another record.
In March, a study from scientists at the European Central Bank and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found that rising temperatures could add as much as 1.2 percentage points to annual global inflation by 2035. The effects are taking shape already: Drought in Europe is devastating olive harvests. Heavy rains and extreme heat in West Africa are causing cocoa plants to rot. Wildfires, floods and more frequent weather disasters are pushing insurance costs up, too.
Soaring temperatures will create unbearable conditions for crops and workers. Severe storms and prolonged droughts will batter supply chains and disrupt the flow of trade. Escalating risk and uncertainty will make it more difficult to insure everything from a home to a new business venture.
“These are really big effects … and they are going to get worse,” said Max Kotz, a climate economist at the Potsdam Institute and lead author of the March study. “The clearest way we can limit that is just trying to limit climate change itself.”
For now, experts say, it’s difficult to pinpoint climate change’s effect on prices beyond a few items. Too many other factors are also pushing costs up right now, including wars and supply chains.
But there’s little doubt among economists that a hotter world will also be more expensive.