The Rise of Greenflation

[NickB79]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/02/greenflation-prices-inflation-climate-change-coffee-lumber/621456/

For years, scientists and economists have warned that climate change could cause massive shortages of major commodities, such as wine, chocolate, and cereals. Financial regulators have cautioned against a “disorderly transition,” in which the world commits only haphazardly to leaving fossil fuels, so it does not invest enough in their zero-carbon replacements. In an economy as prosperous and powerful as America’s, those problems are likely to show up—at least at first—not as empty grocery shelves or bankrupt gas stations but as price increases.

That phenomenon, long hypothesized, may be starting to actually arrive. Over the past year, unprecedented weather disasters have caused the price of key commodities to spike, and a volatile oil-and-gas market has allowed Russia and Saudi Arabia to exert geopolitical force.

“This climate-change risk to the supply chain—it’s actually real. It is happening now,” Mohamed Kande, the U.S. and global advisory leader at the accounting firm PwC, told me.

[orwell]

1. The "volatile" oil and gas market...

...is due to cartel pricing. Producers are holding back supply to increase prices. Ask our Saudi "friends." Since there is no free market prices can rise as long as the cartel holds together.

Climate change effects to commodity prices are not responsible for commodity price increases...not yet. It is far more likely due to supply constraints due to Covid lockdowns and just-in-time supply chains.

A big driver in inflation is Drumpfs ridiculous trade wars...

But nobody seems to want to mention that in our "liberal press" because that would put a positive spin on "evil" neoliberal economics.