Climateflation Isn’t Coming — It’s Already Here

In the same breath as politicians mumble about affordability and families “feeling the pinch,” a new report warns that UK food prices could soar by more than a third by 2050. But this isn’t inflation as we’ve known it — it’s climateflation: the price of ignoring environmental collapse.

The Autonomy Institute’s warning is blunt — and overdue. Their modelling shows that extreme weather, driven by climate breakdown, is already slashing harvests, sabotaging supply chains, and pushing basic groceries out of reach. Chocolate, coffee, fruit and veg — all hit. And the forecast? By 2050, a worst-case emissions scenario could see a 34% food price surge. Even the best-case scenario still hits 25%.

This isn’t some faraway climate consequence. This is now. This is poverty rising by nearly a million people in the UK because food has become a luxury.

The UK imports nearly half its food. That means climate breakdown overseas hits us directly — from droughts crippling Spain and Brazil to floods hammering domestic production. In 2023 alone, UK veg yields were down 12% from storms and floods. West African cocoa crops withered in record heat. Global coffee crops failed. And supermarket prices ticked upwards while the government talked about ‘levelling up.’

Meanwhile, the rest of the world burns.

Across Africa, Latin America, and the Mediterranean, drought has pushed tens of millions to the edge of starvation. Zimbabwe lost 70% of its corn crop. Spain halved its olive oil production. Morocco has seen six consecutive years of drought. Turkey’s aquifers are drained, opening up deadly sinkholes. Somalia? One in four people now face starvation.

And it's spreading.

This isn’t a drought. This is a system failure — a slow-motion collapse brought on by a society that treats the planet like a commodity and animals like resources. As warming reshapes rainfall, destroys glaciers, and crushes food and water systems, we’re told to carry on as normal. To eat the same, buy the same, vote the same.

The climate isn’t the only thing breaking. So is the social contract.

Because climateflation doesn’t just mean price tags. It means power outages, food insecurity, social unrest. It means your kids being priced out of bread and rice. It means a growing global underclass that starves while others speculate on grain futures.

Even the UN is spelling it out: “When energy, food, and water all go at once, societies start to unravel.” We’re not waiting for that. It’s begun.

And yet, awareness lags behind. Why? Because we’ve been boiled like frogs — slowly, incrementally, as each new “unprecedented” climate disaster gets normalised. Researchers call it the “boiling frog effect”: each catastrophe shifts the baseline. What used to be unthinkable is now Tuesday.

By 2030, freshwater demand will outstrip supply by 40%. Half the world’s food production will be at risk. And we’re still pretending beef is part of a balanced diet.

Let’s be clear: using animals is driving this collapse. Animal agriculture is the single biggest driver of land use, deforestation, water depletion, and emissions. Every slice of cheese, every steak, every latte with dairy milk — it’s all part of the cost.

Not just to the animals forced into our food systems, but to us.

The solution? Stop acting like the current system can be patched up with price caps and ‘public diners.’ What we need is total transformation. End animal use. Dismantle extraction economies. Stop pretending we can consume our way out of this.

Climateflation isn’t a surprise. It’s a bill we’ve been racking up for centuries. And it’s past due.