From potatoes to cocoa and coffee, severe weather spikes food prices worldwide, study finds
Article content
In addition to contributing to overall inflation, the authors identify political unrest as another potential societal risk. 'Our paper is really a call to action for us to consider these wider effects of food price increases in response to climate change for our societies more widely, as these effects are going to continue to become worse in the future,' said Kotz.
Article content
A figure in the study maps the 16 examples of climate-induced food price spikes since 2022, colour coded by degree and type of event (heat, drought and floods).
Article content
'If you looked at Max's global picture, what you'd see through the eyes of an economist is well-functioning markets,' said Raj Patel, a member of the IPES-Food panel and a research professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who wasn't involved in the study. 'The weather turns, the crop becomes less likely to come out of the ground, and prices spike. But there is a political-economic consequence for that.'
Article content
The researchers note that food price volatility has been linked to political instability throughout history, such as 2011's Arab Spring and the French and Russian revolutions of the 18th and 20th centuries.
Article content
'The meaning of food price inflation is political. It's always political,' said Patel.
Article content
He cites Mozambique's 2010 bread riots, the roots of which were planted in Russia, where wildfires burned during the country's worst heatwave in more than a century. A lack of firefighting infrastructure made it difficult to put them out, and the country's main growing areas were decimated. As a result, Russia imposed an embargo on wheat exports, and global prices surged. People died due to the wildfires in Russia and during protests, sparked by sky-high bread prices, on the streets of Mozambique.
Article content
'This is how a heat spike in Russia can cause deaths by live ammunition in Mozambique,' adds Patel. 'These are the kinds of arcs that we need to be looking for when we understand climate change. Because climate change isn't just, 'Oh, it's hot outside.' Climate change is always freighted with a political valence.'
Article content
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
5 hours ago
- National Post
Derek Burney: Disillusioned Trump tries to talk tough on Ukraine
On first blush following a visit to the White House by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, it seemed like Donald Trump had changed his tune on Vladimir Putin. He would typically have a 'lovely conversation' with the Russian leader, the president said, then, soon after, Russian missiles would fly at night against Ukrainian civilians. Article content Trump has agreed to sell much-needed military equipment, like the Patriot air defence missiles and long-range missiles that could reach deep into Russian territory, to European NATO members for transfer to Ukraine. Among other things, the move benefits U.S. defence suppliers. Some European nations intend to send their existing supplies to Ukraine soon and obtain replacements from the U.S. Outstanding questions are: how long it will take to ship the equipment and in what quantity? Article content Article content Trump is intent on extracting the U.S. from the Ukraine conflict, which he often describes as 'Biden's war,' suggesting that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president. His campaign promise to end the war in 24 hours has fallen to the wayside. He has slow-walked and even paused military shipments to Ukraine authorized by the Biden administration. For six months, Trump has steadfastly ignored the distinction between the aggressor and its victim. At least he has now succeeded in getting Europe to assume more of the burden. But some of the smaller European countries like Hungary are backsliding on NATO commitments to Ukraine. Article content Article content Trump has threatened 100 per cent secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil — namely China, India and Brazil — if there is no progress toward a ceasefire and peace within 50 days — a bit like the tactic he is using unlawfully to extract concessions on trade from friends and foes alike. Trump's sanctions 'threat' is a reprieve enabling Putin to continue his summer offensive that has already subjugated more than 500 square miles of territory in Eastern Ukraine. Putin told Trump in a recent phone call that he intended to push hard for the next 60 days. John Lough of the New Eurasia Strategic Centre's think-tank observed that the intensifying Russian attacks were 'aimed to demoralize Ukraine's population and zap its will to fight.' Article content Article content Meanwhile, 85 members of the U.S. Senate want to vote on a bill that would levy tariffs 'up to 500 per cent' on countries buying Russian oil, but the Republican majority will not move forward without a green light from the White House. Article content Article content The Kremlin has stoutly rejected Trump's 50-day proposition as ' unacceptable. ' Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run Tass news agency that Russia's position is 'unshakable.' Article content Despite the excessive flattery expressed by NATO's Secretary General, there are misgivings in Europe about the meaning of Trump's 50-day threat. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, told reporters in Brussels that, 'Fifty days is a very long time if we see that they are killing innocent civilians every day.' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, diplomatically thanked the U.S. president for 'his willingness to support Ukraine.' Article content No mention was made about the $300+ billion in Russian assets held in the West, primarily in Europe — funds Ukraine could desperately use to repair the infrastructure being demolished by Russian drone and missile attacks.
Globe and Mail
14 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Trump accuses Obama of treason over 2016 Russia probe, offers no evidence
U.S. President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of 'treason' on Tuesday, accusing him, without providing evidence, of leading an effort to falsely tie him to Russia and undermine his 2016 presidential campaign. A spokesperson for Obama denounced Trump's claims, saying 'these bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.' While Trump has frequently attacked Obama by name, the Republican president has not, since returning to office in January, gone this far in pointing the finger at his Democratic predecessor with allegations of criminal action. During remarks in the Oval Office, Trump leaped on comments from his intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, on Friday in which she threatened to refer Obama administration officials to the Justice Department for prosecution over an intelligence assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election. She declassified documents and said the information she was releasing showed a 'treasonous conspiracy' in 2016 by top Obama administration officials to undermine Trump, claims that Democrats called false and politically motivated. 'It's there, he's guilty. This was treason,' Trump said on Tuesday, though he offered no proof of his claims. 'They tried to steal the election, they tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody's ever imagined, even in other countries.' Opinion: Donald Trump's corruption knows no bounds or precedent An assessment by the U.S. intelligence community published in January 2017 concluded that Russia, using social media disinformation, hacking and Russian bot farms, sought to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign and bolster Trump. The assessment determined that the actual impact was likely limited and showed no evidence that Moscow's efforts actually changed voting outcomes. A 2020 bipartisan report by the Senate intelligence committee had found that Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort, the WikiLeaks website and others to try to influence the 2016 election to help Trump's campaign. 'Nothing in the document issued last week [by Gabbard] undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,' Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush said in a statement. Trump, who has a history of promoting false conspiracy theories, has frequently denounced the assessments as a 'hoax.' In recent days, Trump reposted on his Truth Social account a fake video showing Obama being arrested in handcuffs in the Oval Office. Trump has been seeking to divert attention to other issues after coming under pressure from his conservative base to release more information about Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Backers of conspiracy theories about Epstein have urged Trump, who socialized with the disgraced financier during the 1990s and early 2000s, to release investigative files related to the case. Trump sues Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch for Epstein birthday letter coverage Trump, asked in the Oval Office about Epstein, quickly pivoted into an attack on Obama and Clinton. 'The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold,' Trump said. Trump suggested action would be taken against Obama and his former officials, calling the Russia investigation a treasonous act and the former president guilty of 'trying to lead a coup.' 'It's time to start, after what they did to me, and whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people. Obama has been caught directly,' he said. Democratic Representative Jim Himes responded on X: 'This is a lie. And if he's confused, the President should ask @SecRubio, who helped lead the bipartisan Senate investigation that unanimously concluded that there was no evidence of politicization in the intelligence community's behavior around the 2016 election.' Former Republican Senator Marco Rubio is now Trump's secretary of state. Since returning to office, Trump has castigated his political opponents whom he claims weaponized the federal government against him and his allies for the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters and his handling of classified materials after he left office in 2021. Picture of Trump after the assassination attempt displaces Obama portrait at the White House Obama has long been a target of Trump. In 2011 he accused then-President Obama of not being born in the United States, prompting Obama to release a copy of his birth certificate. In recent months, Trump has rarely held back in his rhetorical broadsides against his two Democratic predecessors in a way all but unprecedented in modern times. He launched an investigation after accusing former President Joe Biden and his staff, without evidence, of a 'conspiracy' to use an autopen, an automated device that replicates a person's signature, to sign sensitive documents on the president's behalf. Biden has rejected the claim as false and 'ridiculous.' Gabbard's charge that Obama conspired to subvert Trump's 2016 election by manufacturing intelligence on Russia's interference is contradicted by a CIA review ordered by Director John Ratcliffe and published on July 2, a 2018 bipartisan Senate report and declassified documents that Gabbard herself released last week. The documents show that Gabbard conflated two separate U.S. intelligence findings in alleging that Obama and his national security aides changed an assessment that Russia probably was not trying to influence the election through cyber means. One finding was that Russia was not trying to hack U.S. election infrastructure to change vote counts and the second was that Moscow probably was using cyber means to influence the U.S. political environment through information and propaganda operations, including by stealing and leaking data from Democratic Party servers. The January 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment ordered by Obama built on that second finding: that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to sway the 2016 vote to Trump. The review ordered by Ratcliffe found flaws in the production of that assessment. But it did not contest its conclusion and upheld 'the quality and credibility' of a highly classified CIA report on which the assessment's authors relied.
CBC
19 hours ago
- CBC
Russia touts strike drones made in factory on TV, where teens appear to be working on them
A Russian factory, described by its director as the world's biggest maker of strike drones, has been shown on the Russian army's TV channel with teenagers helping make kamikaze drones to attack Ukraine. The footage, in a documentary film broadcast by the Zvezda channe l on Sunday, showed hundreds of large black completed Geran-2 suicide drones in rows inside the secretive facility, which has been targeted by Ukrainian long-range drones. Ukraine says Russia has used the Geran drones to terrorize and kill civilians in locations including its capital, Kyiv, where residents often shelter in metro stations during attacks. Russia says its drone and missile strikes target only military or military-related targets, and it denies deliberately targeting civilians — more than 13,000 of whom have been killed in Ukraine since the all-out war began in February 2022 after Russia invaded its neighbour, the United Nations says. Zvezda said the Alabuga factory, in Russia's Tatarstan region, invited school pupils to study at a college that the factory runs nearby once they had completed ninth grade so that they could study drone manufacturing there and then work at the factory when they had finished college. Young workers shown inside factory Young workers, including teenagers, were shown with their faces blurred out, studying computer screens or making and testing individual components, or assembling drones. Timur Shagivaleyev, the factory's general director, did not disclose detailed production figures. But he told Zvezda the initial plan had been to produce "several thousand Geran-2 drones" and that the factory was now producing nine times more than that. He did not say what period the figures referred to. A Russian think-tank close to the government suggested last month that Russia's drone production had jumped by 16.9 per cent in May compared with the previous month after Russian President Vladimir Putin called for output to be stepped up. Putin said in April that more than 1.5 million drones of various types had been produced last year but that Russian troops fighting on the front line in Ukraine needed more. More and more drones Both sides have deployed drones on a huge scale, using them to spot and hit targets not only on the battlefield but way beyond the front lines. Zvezda said the Alabuga factory had its own drone testing ground and showed rows of parked U.S. RAM pickup trucks carrying Geran-2 drones. It also showed one of them launching a drone. In May, Russia paraded combat drones that its forces use in the war in Ukraine on Moscow's Red Square in what state TV said was a first. The design of the Geran-2, which has a known range of at least 1,500 kilometres, originated in Iran, where an earlier version was made. They have been used to target Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Zvezda set the documentary to upbeat music, part of its mission to keep Russians interested in and supportive of the war. The factory is part of the so-called Alabuga Special Economic Zone, near the town of Yelabuga, which is more than 1,000 kilometres from the border with Ukraine.
