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South Korean cabbage, Australian lettuce, Japanese rice, Brazilian coffee and Ghanaian cocoa are among the many foods that have been hit by price hikes following extreme climate events since 2022, a team of international scientists has found.
The research released on Monday cites, among other examples, a 280 percent spike in global cocoa prices in April 2024, following a heatwave in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, and a 300 percent jump in lettuce prices in Australia after floods in 2022.
In the vast majority of cases, the increase in prices came soon after heatwaves, including a 70 percent increase in cabbage prices in South Korea in September 2024, a 48 percent increase in rice prices in Japan in September 2024, and an 81 percent increase in potato prices in India in early 2024.
Other price increases were linked to drought, such as a 2023 drought in Brazil that preceded a 55 percent increase in global coffee prices the following year, and a 2022 drought in Ethiopia that came before overall food prices there increased by 40 percent in 2023.
The research, published by six European research organisations along with the European Central Bank, was released before the United Nations Food Systems Summit, which will be co-hosted by Ethiopia and Italy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from July 27 to July 29.
Hasan Basri, a 55-year-old farmer, pulls out his rice that failed to be harvested due to a prolonged drought in Aceh Besar, Indonesia, on July 31, 2024 [Riska Munawarah/Reuters]
“Until we get to net zero emissions extreme weather will only get worse, but it’s already damaging crops and pushing up the price of food all over the world,” the report’s lead author, Maximillian Kotz, from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, said in a press release.
“People are noticing, with rising food prices number two on the list of climate impacts they see in their lives, second only to extreme heat itself,” Kotz added, noting that low-income families are often the most affected when “the price of food shoots up”.
The report comes as the cost of living, including food affordability, has been a key issue for many voters heading to elections around the world in recent years, including in Japan, where the price of rice was on many voters’ minds as they headed to the polls this weekend.
Grocery prices were also key election issues in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2024 and in Argentina in 2023.
Kim Si-Gap, the head of the High-Altitude Cabbage and Radish Producers’ Association, walks around his kimchi cabbage field at the Anbandeogi village in Gangneung, South Korea, on August 22, 2024 [Kim Soo-hyeon/Reuters]
“In the UK, climate change added £360 [$482] to the average household food bill across 2022 and 2023 alone,” one of the report’s co-authors, Amber Sawyer, from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said in a press release.
“Last year, the UK had its third worst arable harvest on record, and England its second worst, following extreme rainfall that scientists said was made worse by climate change,” she added.
Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), governments have committed to cutting the global emissions that are driving the climate crisis by 2.6 percent from 2019 to 2030.
However, these commitments fall well short of the reductions scientists say are needed to stay within reach of a Paris Agreement target to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is expected to deliver a landmark advisory opinion on states’ legal obligations to address climate change on Wednesday, in a case brought by Vanuatu and backed by many Global South countries.
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