A coffee shortage is looming, warns Australian climate change think tank
Shortages that could hurt the livelihoods of 25 million coffee farmers around the globe are already having an effect
Coffee is more than just the crucial beverage that makes it easier to face the workday. It provides comfort, culture, and is an essential source of the caffeine that Harvard neuroscientist Charles Czeisler says makes modern life possible.
But the global coffee supply is currently at risk, with shortages already starting to affect the world.
A full half of the world's area that's deemed suitable for growing coffee will be lost by 2050 if climate change remains unchecked, according to a new report from The Climate Institute of Australia.
By 2080, the report estimates that wild coffee (which helps us find genetic varietals that might be more resistant to climate stress) could go extinct.
Coffee shortages that make it harder to get good coffee and that hurt the livelihoods of 25 million coffee farmers around the globe are already having an effect, and it's not just environmental research groups that are concerned about future access to coffee. Advisors for corporate giants like Starbucks and Lavazza agree.
"We have a cloud hovering over our head. It’s dramatically serious," Mario Cerutti, Green Coffee and Corporate Relations Partner at Lavazza, said at a hospitality conference in Italy in 2015.