• Climate change is on course to make fresh fruit and vegetables unaffordable for many across the next two decades as it disrupts the production of UK’s imported and domestic produce. This report’s key findings are as follows:
• Heat waves are projected to add around 11% to the price of the UK’s top twenty fruit and vegetables by 2035 and around 68% by 2050 under a high emissions scenario, on top of normal inflation. Imported tropical fruit such as melons, oranges, bananas, easy peelers and grapes will rise 12% to 14% by 2035 and 80% to 93% by 2050 on these climate grounds alone.
• Compounded with estimated normal inflation, total average shelf prices of the overall basket of fruit and veg will reach upwards of 170% above today’s level by 2050.
• This means that climate-flation will be contributing 40% of total inflation across the basket of basic goods by 2035 and over 60% of it by 2050. Climate change will have gone from a junior contributor to the dominant driver of shelf-price inflation on fresh produce inside the working lifetime of someone in their thirties today.
• It is essential to note that this report only studies the effects of heat waves on the cost of food in the UK and uses a standard baseline for CPI inflation.
• It does not factor in other climate-related impacts on food production, such as flooding as well as second order effects, e.g. infrastructure degradation, soil erosion, water quality and so on.
• Nor does the report factor in geopolitical impacts on inflation, which are often intertwined with climate and resource factors.
• Thus, this report remains a conservative and non-comprehensive estimate of climate change’s impact on inflation.
• The report makes it clear that a state strategy for reducing prices is needed to maintain affordability through the period in which climate factors are still rising. Later studies by Autonomy will explore price caps, domestic horticulture investment, low-carbon greenhouses, and a serious industrial strategy for resilient food supply.
• An inflation response needs to start now, not when plateauing or negative wage growth fails to counter the cost of healthy essentials in the years ahead.
