The dawning of the £6.50 loaf?

|PIC1|One environmental agency fears a new era of eye watering food prices across the globe unless “urgent” action is taken to prevent dangerous climate change.

Friends of the Earth predicts that the price of staple foods will soar to four and a half times the normal inflation because of increased stress upon the land and resources caused by climate change.

It warns that wheat, rice and maize crop yields will all fall and patterns of trade and consumption will be affected.

Mealtime favourites like bread, rice and pasta could become so expensive that millions of people are left struggling to buy enough food to maintain a healthy diet.

If the predictions are right, it could see shops charge £6.50 for a loaf of bread, £7 for a box of cornflakes, and a staggering £18 for a pint of beer.

The figures were put together for Friends of the Earth by Ray Hammond, an expert in future social and economic trends and visiting lecturer at the University of Oxford’s Institute for the Future of Humanity.

His estimates are based on previous price hikes recorded by the World Bank and projections by the International Food Policy Research Institute.

They have been released just weeks before a major UN summit in Copenhagen to hash out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

"Our global food production is already precarious - and climate change threatens to tip it into disaster," said Mr Hammond.

"£6.50 for a loaf of bread, £7 for a bag of pasta and £18 for a pint of lager - this is what the future looks like in Britain if we don't prevent dangerous climate change.

Aid agencies like Friends of the Earth and Christian Aid are warning of catastrophic climate change unless world leaders reach a deal on issues like carbon emission reductions and adaptation funds for developing countries.

"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 here in the UK alone," said Friends of the Earth Head of Climate, Mike Childs.

"There is still time to avert this nightmare scenario. At the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in just 40 days, rich countries must show leadership by stumping up hard cash for developing countries to grow cleanly and adapt to the effects of climate change already putting millions of lives at risk."

Mr Hammond added: "Rich countries must take strong and decisive action to propel us towards a strong and fair agreement in Copenhagen in December - otherwise many people in the UK will face a Dickensian struggle to afford food and millions of people in the developing world will be condemned to early deaths."

Following recent climate change talks in London, Christian Aid said that securing a fair, ambitious and binding climate deal in Copenhagen was “a matter of extreme urgency – not politics”.

“We fear that the developed world is out to kill Kyoto,” said Nelson Muffuh, Christian Aid’s senior climate advocacy coordinator.

“But this is not the time for world leaders to act on short-sighted self-interest – they have a climate emergency on their hands and time is running out for them to create a solution.”