The data suggests climate change is rippling through entire economies, instead of affecting the availability or price of particular goods., more intense and frequent heat waves and other factors are already driving up the prices of food and other goods worldwide.
The study shows that food inflation could increase by as much as 3 percentage points per year in the next decade due to "climateflation," while climate factors cause overall inflation to climb by between 0.3 percentage points per year to about 1.2 percentage points per year. And during the summer months, extratropical regions, such as the U.S. and Europe, are vulnerable to more sudden inflation increases from extreme heat events. This was seen in Europe during itsThe researchers incorporated more than 27,000 observations of monthly price indices across 121 countries in the developed and developing worlds during the 1996 to 2021 period, along with high-resolution weather observations.
The study also examines the role of adaptation to climate change during the past few decades and into the near future. They found little evidence it reduces inflationary pressures.They did not find clear indications of a robust relationship between precipitation shifts and inflation, which is similar to findings from other studies. However, the authors attributed this to precipitation's higher variability that makes it more difficult to model.