Impact of climate change on food prices is underestimated, Oxfam warns

Rebecca Smithers in the Guardian (UK): Climate change's impact on future food prices is being underestimated, Oxfam warned in a report on Wednesday. The development charity predicts that massive price spikes will be a devastating blow to the world's poorest people who today spend up to 75% of their income on food, and will also adversely affect UK consumers.

Its report, Extreme Weather, Extreme Price, suggests extreme weather events such as droughts and floods – made more likely by global warming – could drive up future food prices. Previous research has tended to consider gradual impacts of rising global temperatures, such as changing rainfall patterns.

Oxfam's research, comissioned by the charity and undertaken by the Institute of Development Studies, examines the impact of extreme weather scenarios on food prices in 2030. It warns that by that date the world could be even more vulnerable to the kind of drought happening today in the US – the worst in 60 years – with dependence on US exports of wheat and maize predicted to rise and climate change increasing the likelihood of extreme droughts in North America. ...