The story of inflation in the last few years has been fairly consistent across the global economy. Pandemic-driven supply chain snarls, along with governments’ spending on economic recovery, pushed prices up. Central banks responded by raising interest rates, and now inflation is at a level that policymakers are just about comfortable with. But not quite.

In the past few days, central bankers in Australia, Russia and India have expressed concern about the potential for inflation to tick back up. Canada’s inflation rate, reported Tuesday, was a bit hotter than analysts expected. The U.K. is due to report October inflation Wednesday, and traders expect the rate to bump up a bit there too. 

While the world’s inflation picture is not terrible, there are problems that could worsen it. Some are on the supply side, said Jonathan Welburn, a senior researcher at the Rand Corp.

“Either that’s coming through energy pressures [or] pressures from potential conflict scenarios,” he said.

Take the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, which could flare up in ways that disrupt energy and food supplies.

“There’s a global price for energy, and you know, a lot of food commodities, also globally traded — wheat, rice, corn, soybeans,” said Bill Emmons, a former Federal Reserve economist and professor at Washington University in St. Louis. 

There’s also the potential for the incoming Donald Trump administration to impose tariffs, which could set off trade wars.

That would make some items more expensive in the U.S. And Emmons said it could also boost the value of the dollar and weaken other countries’ currencies.

“As their currencies depreciate versus the dollar, then items that they import that are dollar-denominated, like oil, other foodstuffs, would become more expensive,” he said.

So potential trade wars, actual wars and, oh yeah, the increasing frequency of weather disasters linked to climate change, said Cristian Tiu, a finance professor at the University at Buffalo. 

“Efforts to rebuild after these disasters happen actually will increase, and then that will increase costs,” he said.

So while central bankers have good reason to be wary, Ann Owen, an economics professor at Hamilton College, said they’re also concerned about their reputations. 

“They’re particularly cautious right now because of the recent history where they underestimated inflation, and they don’t want to make that same mistake again,” she said.

Declaring victory over inflation only to have it rear its head again, she said, is not a great look. 

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