World Without US

Rising global temperatures are accelerating inflation and will likely push the cost of food, goods and services higher for years to come, researchers warned Thursday, the latest example of how the climate crisis is affecting human health and the economy as the costs of adapting to a warming world grow.

Increasing temperatures could boost average inflation by as much as 1.2 percentage points every year until 2035, warned researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Central Bank in Germany.

Climate change could drive the cost of food up by as much as 3.2 percentage points a year, said the peer reviewed report, which was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The findings come from an analysis of monthly consumer price indices and weather data across 121 countries over the last 30 years, which was used to figure out how changing temperatures affect inflation and then combined with climate models projecting future warming over the next few decades over a range of emissions scenarios.