Not worried about climate change? Food shortages and price hikes may change your mind – Dr Richard Dixon

They are apparently not worried about record temperatures around the globe. Or increasing floods, storms and droughts. The 20 million-plus people at risk of severe hunger in the long-running east African drought apparently don’t bother them. The shrinking ice caps, the advancing deserts and the disappearing glaciers are of no interest to them. Even the floods in Scotland are perhaps considered a minor inconvenience.

So what will make them think that climate change might actually be a bad thing? Perhaps it will be the soaring prices and risk of shortages of basic and not-so-basic foodstuffs.

Floods and extreme heat

Globally and at home, agriculture is one of the sectors most obviously being hit by our changing climate. Arable farmers across the UK are estimated to have lost £1 billion because of exceptional rainfall over the last year. Fields have been too waterlogged to plant some crops and others have rotted in the ground. High-quality wheat harvests could be down by 40 per cent, so bread prices will rise.

Similar conditions in countries like France and Germany, extreme heat in southern Europe and drought in Morocco mean imports will be scarcer and more expensive.

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Just now we have an olive oil shortage, more than doubling the price, and weather impacts mean this year’s UK rapeseed oil supplies could be only half what they are in a good year.

Coffee and chocolate are both very vulnerable to climate change. The chocolate industry is worth over $100 billion a year and supports millions of farmers. But cocoa grows only in limited regions around the equator. Extreme heat and rainfall in West Africa have caused the price of a tonne of cocoa to double this year. Coffee prices have hit new record highs this year.

Multiple crop failures

The price of a portion of chips is already much higher than it was a few years ago and this winter’s floods in Scotland have reduced the expected potato harvest, driving prices up more than 50 per cent compared to last year. Combined with the increasing cost of the oil to fry them and higher energy bills, the humble poke of chips may start to seem like a luxury.

A big fear of United Nations’ agencies is crop failures in multiple regions. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food. And if conditions become too wet or too dry at crucial points in the rice-growing cycle, massive food shortages could result. In times of shortage, the UK is unlikely to be high up the list of countries to continue to get exports of food urgently needed in the producing country.

We are already seeing very significant price rises in some commodities, and we’ve seen media stories threatening the end of the Easter Egg because of chocolate shortages, and the disappearance of coffee. For some people, these might be the things that finally make them realise that climate change is a real and growing emergency, and reducing emissions should be a top priority.

Dr Richard Dixon is an environmental campaigner and consultant