The Future is Equal

Archives for September 5, 2012

Extreme weather, extreme prices: The costs of feeding a warm world

Climate change is making extreme weather – like droughts, floods and heat waves – much more likely. As the 2012 drought in the US shows, extreme weather means extreme food prices. Our failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions presents a future of greater food price volatility, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people in poverty. This research shows how extreme weather events in a single year could bring about price spikes of comparable magnitude to two decades of long-run price rises. It signals the urgent need for a full stress-testing of the global food system in a warming world.


Food price spikes will get worse as extreme weather caused by climate change devastates food production

Oxfam’s new report, “Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices”, highlights for the first time how extreme weather events such as droughts and floods could drive up future food prices. Previous research only tends to consider gradual impacts, such as increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.

[Read more…] about Food price spikes will get worse as extreme weather caused by climate change devastates food production