Welcome to ‘climateflation’

If you ask an economist why everything is so expensive these days, you will likely get an answer explaining how oil — the lifeblood of the global economy — is currently facing supply bottlenecks in the Strait of Hormuz, thereby bringing up global energy prices.

That explanation is part of the answer, but it doesn’t paint the whole picture. Our new research proposes a new way of thinking about rising costs in our contemporary era, through the lens of what we call “climateflation.”

As a concept, climateflation proposes that the causes, effects and even attempts to mitigate and adapt to climate change are conspiring to make everyday life more expensive.

As ecological political economists, we are concerned not just with how rising costs impact people’s wallets, but also with how it might have spinoff effects in areas such as social inequality, political radicalization, geopolitical instability and environmental degradation.