FILE - Shoppers buy food in a supermarket in London, on Aug. 17, 2022. Food prices and overall inflation will rise as temperatures climb with climate change, a new study by an environmental scientist and the European Central Bank found. FILE - A woman shelters from the sun with an umbrella along the Seine River, as Europe is under an extreme heat wave, in Paris, France, Aug. 2, 2022.
“The physical impacts of climate change are going to have a persistent effect on inflation,” Kotz said. “This is really from my perspective another example of one of the ways in which climate change can undermine human welfare, economic welfare.”Swiss central bank makes a surprise cut to its key interest rate as others hold steadyAnd by 2060, the climate-triggered part of inflation should grow, with global food prices predicted to increase 2.2 to 4.3 percentage points annually, the study said.
Usually when economists talk inflation and climate change, it’s about rising energy prices in response to efforts to curb warming, but that’s only part of the problem, Kotz said.