Climate-Driven Price Transmission and Food Security in an Emissions-Intensive Food System

Climate change increasingly affects human well-being through indirect pathways that link environmental pressure to economic systems. While the impacts of climate change on agricultural production are well documented, less attention has been given to price-mediated pathways through which climate-related stress translates into food insecurity, particularly in unequal and market-dependent food systems. This study examines how anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions interact with food price dynamics and macroeconomic conditions to shape household food access in an emissions-intensive economy.Using annual time-series data for South Africa from 1992 to 2021, we apply a Vector Error Correction Model to capture long-run equilibrium relationships and short-run shock transmission among CO₂ emissions, consumer prices, inflation, purchasing power parity, and employment. The results reveal a stable long-run relationship in which rising emissions exert persistent upward pressure on food prices, consistent with climate-induced disruptions to agricultural production and food supply chains. In the short run, inflationary pressures and external price transmission significantly amplify food price volatility, while employment plays a stabilizing role by supporting household purchasing power and reducing vulnerability to food access constraints.These findings demonstrate that climate change undermines food security not only through biophysical impacts on food production but also through price-mediated mechanisms that transmit Earth system stress into human welfare outcomes. By framing food prices as a critical interface between climate change and household vulnerability, this study advances understanding of food security as a coupled human–Earth system outcome and highlights the need for integrated climate, economic, and social policies.