- The Earth is now about 1.1 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
- Globally, 2021 was the fifth warmest year on record.
- Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of COtwo by nearly 49 per cent above pre-industrial levels starting in 1850.
- The world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target to keep global temperature from exceeding 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change.
- 2015-2019 were the five warmest years on record while 2010-2019 was the warmest decade on record.
- On the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, the temperature could increase by as much as 4.4 C by the end of the century.
- In 2019, greenhouse gas concentrations reached new highs. Carbon dioxide levels were 148 per cent of preindustrial levels.
- Emissions must drop 7.6 per cent per year from 2020 to 2030 to keep temperatures from exceeding 1.5 C and 2.7 per cent per year to stay below 2 C.
- 97% of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming and that human beings are the cause.
(Source: United Nations IPCC, World Meteorological Organization,UNEP, Nasa, climatedata.ca)
LATEST CLIMATE NEWS
Climate activists rally on Earth Day
Dozens of climate change activists demonstrated on Earth Day Friday on Vancouver’s Cambie Street bridge during rush hour.
They are calling for more urgent government action to address the climate and ecological crises.
The protesters met at City Hall in the afternoon and marched to the bridge.
Organizers of the rally include groups Save Old Growth, Protect the Planet, and Extinction Rebellion. The groups are demanding an end to all-growth logging in BC and the cancellation of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and other fossil fuel projects.
Demonstrators with Save Old Growth briefly shut down the Ironworkers Memorial bridge Thursday, causing a minor collision, said Vancouver Police. One woman was arrested.
The group’s tactics of blocking roads and highways drew a rebuke from Premier John Horgan, who said he was “profoundly disappointed” by the protesters’ actions.
Save Old Growth, which had organized several traffic-disrupting protests in recent months, said 84 people have been arrested on BC highways since January.
Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change
Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google, according to a report by The Associated Press.
AP reported there was no indication that the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change.
The announcement coincided with Earth Day Friday.
New network of high-tech, low-emission buses dominate TransLink priorities for next decade
Newly proposed transportation connections across the Lower Mainland will feature snazzy-looking buses, not SkyTrain, if long-term priorities unveiled on Wednesday by TransLink go ahead.
Zero-emission, high-tech vehicles, nine new corridors for them to drive on dedicated traffic-separated lanes, and 450 kilometers of new traffic-separated rolling/walking paths are among the projects TransLink is planning for the coming 10 years.
TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn said the proposed projects reflect an urgent need to rapidly invest in improvements to ease congestion, counter climate change, and address housing affordability.
The proposals are priorities TransLink and the mayors’ council on regional transportation have identified to be completed in the first 10 years of a report called Transport 2050, which was adopted in January by the council.
Read the full story here.
—Gordon McIntyre
Conservation groups allege BC Hydro is not allocating enough funding to habitat restoration at its hydroelectric dams
Two conservation groups allege BC Hydro have failed to meet their legal obligations to compensate for the environmental damage caused by their hydroelectric dams.
The BC Wildlife Federation and the UVic Environmental Law Center have submitted a 66-page brief to Michael Pickup, BC’s auditor general, calling for an audit and examination of the Crown corporation’s funding of the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program.
BC Hydro has legal and moral obligations to ensure that fish and wildlife habitat is restored in the Coastal, Columbia and Peace regions, said Calvin Sandborn, legal director of the UVic Environmental Law Centre.
“BC Hydro has flooded more than 2,000 square kilometers of land. And in the process of doing that, they flooded some of the richest, most fertile habitat in the province,” said Sandborn.
Under the Water Sustainability Act, in order to dam a river, BC Hydro has to obtain a license from the province and there are conditions on that license that there must be compensation for the losses through the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Project.
Read the full story here.
—Tiffany Crawford
Vancouver’s historical seafood menus offer hints of climate change impact: UBC study
Seafood served in Vancouver restaurants is increasingly being dominated by warmer-water species, due to climate change, according to a University of BC professor.
To understand the effects of climate change on seafood, a team led by William Cheung at UBC’s institute for the oceans and fisheries studied 362 restaurant menus in Vancouver over four time periods.
“This study suggests that restaurant menus can be a useful source of information to help detect climate change effects on seafood,” states the team’s report in the journal Environ Biol Fish. According to the report, scientists know that climate change is causing many marine species to move to higher-latitude, deeper waters, or follow local temperature gradients.
However, until now, little work had been done to show how climate change has already impacted seafood retailers and consumers.
Read the full story here.
— David Carrigg and Tiffany Crawford
Climate change investments now reduce future costs, report finds
Spending money now to avoid the worst effects of climate change later will literally pay for itself, according to a new analysis.
“Investing now can pay off later,” said Sean Cleary, head of the Institute for Sustainable Development at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. “The investment is less than the cost.”
Some analysis already exists on the costs climate change could impose, said Cleary.
But much of that work deals with costs that affect businesses, such as retraining workers. And little of it deals specifically with Canada.
Clearly and his colleagues decided to fill that gap, focusing on the physical costs of climate change from damage to infrastructure such as roads and buildings to less easily quantifiable effects like reduced biodiversity.
Using an advanced modeling program, the team found that even if warming is kept to two degrees Celsius, Canada is in for an annual climate change bill of more than $15 billion a year by 2030. At three degrees of warming — the path most of the world is now on — the tab grows to more than $18 billion.
—The Canadian Press
Environment lawyers file complaint with Canada’s Competition Bureau, allege RBC misleading public about climate action
Environment lawyers have filed a complaint with Canada’s Competition Bureau alleging the Royal Bank of Canada is misleading the public with its climate action while still investing in fossil fuels.
The complaint was filed Tuesday by Ecojustice and Stand.earth on behalf of six members of the public, including Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, who is chief of the Neskonlith Indian Band east of Kamloops and Secretary-Treasurer of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.
The other applicants include Eve Saint, who is the daughter of a Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief and an outspoken opponent of BC’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, Toronto-based journalist Chloe Tse, Jennifer Roberge and Jennifer Cox (volunteers with For Our Kids) and Richard Brooks, the finance director at Stand.earth.
They are asking the bureau to open an investigation into “misleading advertising” by RBC about the company’s commitments to climate action while continuing to finance fossil fuel development.
Read the full story here.
—Tiffany Crawford
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