Last summer, a blistering heat wave in Europe caused crops to wilt, rivers to dry up, and workers to stay indoors to escape scorching temperatures. The economic blow was expected to cause prices to rise even further, magnifying inflation sparked by the Ukraine war, although experts at the time were reluctant to quantify by how much. The numbers are in now, but even though climate change had a measurable impact on prices last year, it’s nothing compared to how much warmer temperatures, natural disasters, and unpredictable weather patterns will affect inflation a decade from now.
Europe’s high temperatures last summer increased food inflation on the continent by 0.67 percentage points, but the same conditions would be amplified by 50% in 2035 under current projections for weather extremes a decade from now, according to a report published last week by the European Central Bank and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
