Climate change to drive up basic cost of food

Climate change will push up food prices, increase hunger, and reduce the quality of food, campaigners warned ahead of the publication of a key scientific review of global warming.

With one in eight people in the world already going hungry, the pressure of rising temperatures and extreme weather events on production means more people will not be able to afford enough to eat, Oxfam warned.

The number of people at risk of hunger could rise by 10%-20% by 2050 compared to a world where the climate was not changing, undoing efforts to tackle the problem, the aid agency said.