00:00Well, let's talk now to Professor Tim Benton from the University of Leeds, who's a specialist in food security.
00:07Tim, how worried should we be about all of this?
00:15Quite heavily worried, really, because, you know, we're already experiencing climate change, as you've just been articulating.
00:23And in many ways, this year is a foretaste of what is to come.
00:28The heat waves might be dying out over the next months, but we've still got a very hot year ahead
00:33because of El Nino, likely to have a very wet autumn and winter.
00:38And the decades ahead are going to be full of the same sorts of things that have been thrown at
00:43us already, but only more so.
00:47We're in the middle of a number of conflicts.
00:49I wonder how much does the instability of geopolitics and trade affect this climate security crisis?
01:00Well, our security is not just about guns and ammo.
01:04Our security is about economic security.
01:06It's about food security.
01:07It's about being able to get hold of goods from all around the world.
01:12And so when climate change, on top of the geopolitical instability we have at the moment, whether it's the war
01:18in Ukraine or the war in Iran,
01:21climate change is going to change the availability of what we rely on.
01:25And those two things together means that, you know, if the Straits of Hormuz are already closed and we have
01:33a shortfall in food because of climate change impacts,
01:36the ability to get hold of the sorts of things that we rely on for daily living is going to
01:40be impeded and prices are going to go up.
01:43And so climate change is going to add to the cost of living crisis in innumerable ways because of this
01:49threat to trade.
01:51And it's not just about agriculture. It's also about logistics. It's about energy supply.
01:56It's also about borders and people movement as well.
01:59Now, we've known about this for a long time.
02:02I wonder how ready we are in the UK and more widely in Europe, Western Europe,
02:06when it comes to the impact of climate change on the population and its implications for national security.
02:15We are certainly not ready enough.
02:18There has been widespread acknowledgement that things are going to get difficult.
02:22They're getting difficult faster than we might have predicted about 10 years ago.
02:26And so there is a very significant gap between what we might have to cope with and what we are
02:33doing to cope with what might be coming down the tracks.
02:35And we could invest much more in changing infrastructure, adapting agriculture to changing climates, et cetera, et cetera.
02:43But in the political space in which we live, fiscal constraints and all the rest of that,
02:48it would not be politically easy to pull all the stops out and adapt us.
02:53So the gap between where we need to be and where we are is probably going to grow, not shrink.
02:58I'm trying to read between the lines then of what you're saying.
03:01I mean, what are your predictions then when it comes to food security?
03:05I mean, what does all of this mean in real terms?
03:09Well, I think as we live in a world where power projection by states is not governed by international rules
03:18very much anymore,
03:20and we've got climate change really starting to ramp up its impacts,
03:24we are in for a period where supply chain disruptions are going to become ever present, ever real.
03:31And therefore, we're going to be living in a very inflationary environment for perhaps decades to come.
03:35And therefore, we're going to be living in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
03:35very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
03:35very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
03:35very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
03:35very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
03:35very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
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