DOUBTLESS you have found yourself complaining about the price of a pint in Bournemouth or Poole on a Saturday night.
I imagine you were paying well over £3, which – you’re right – is a little excessive.
Now, how would you feel if you were asked to pay £18 for a pint? That’s right, £18!
And how about £6.50 for your standard loaf of bread?
Well that’s one man’s prediction for the year 2030, unless urgent action is taken to slow down dangerous climate change.
Research by Ray Hammond, visiting lecturer at Oxford University’s Institute for the Future of Humanity, was carried out for Friends of the Earth and examined how warming temperatures could affect supplies of the food basics like bread, rice and pasta – sending their costs soaring over the next two decades.
His research is based on previous price hikes recorded by the World Bank and projections by the International Food Policy Research Institute, who suggested an 800g loaf of white bread which currently costs 72p would rise to £6.48 – as opposed to the £1.44 it would cost under normal inflation.
“Global food production – which is having to cope with a rising world population increasingly eating meat which uses more resources – is already in a precarious situation and climate change threatens to tip it into disaster,” says Ray.
If, as predicted, global temperatures rise by 4C there could be a drop in rice yields by up to 30 per cent in China, India and Bangladesh, and maize and wheat yields could fall by up to 40 per cent in Africa and Asia.
While the dramatic increase in a pint of beer would make for an expensive night out, other price increases on staple foods could cause far bigger global problems.
According to the predictions, a litre of corn oil would rise from £1.99 to £17.91, a kilo of basmati rice would increase from £1.69 in today’s prices to £15.21 and 500g of cornflakes would rise from 78p to £7.20 by 2030!
Friends of the Earth’s head of climate, Mike Childs, is understandably worried about the research findings.
He says: “This vision of life in 2030 shows that life with climate change won’t be pretty, it’ll be pricey!
“The cost of simple foods like bread and rice will rocket and millions more people will go hungry in the UK alone.”
He does stress that there is still time to stop this predicted scenario from becoming a grim reality.
“The richer countries must show leadership by stumping up hard cash for the developing countries to grow cleanly and adapt to the effects of climate change, which are already putting million of lives at risk.
“Rich nations must also slash their emissions first and fast – cutting them by at least 40 per cent by 2020 and the root causes of the food crisis must also be tackled.
“From field to fork, our food currently creates up to half of all greenhouse gas emissions.”
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