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Here’s your weekly roundup of local and international climate change news for the week of Feb. 12 to Feb. 18, 2024.
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Here’s all the latest news concerning the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and the steps leaders are taking to address these issues.
In climate news this week:
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• Climate change threatens B.C.’s ski industry as ‘bad’ years expected to be new normal• B.C. report says climate change brings health risk, as doctor fears ’colossal harms’• Province announces new funding for wildfire equipment, and to better protect Abbotsford from flooding
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Human activities like burning fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This causes heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, increasing the planet’s surface temperature. The panel, which is made up of scientists from around the world, has warned for decades that wildfires and severe weather, such as B.C.’s deadly heat dome and catastrophic flooding in 2021, would become more frequent and more intense because of the climate emergency. It has issued a “code red” for humanity and warns the window to limit warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial times is closing.
But it’s not too late to avoid the worst-case scenarios. According to NASA climate scientists,if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many centuries.
Check back here each Saturday for more climate and environmental news or sign up for our new Climate Connected newsletter HERE.
Climate change quick facts:
The Earth is now about 1.2 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.2023 was hottest on record globally, beating the last record in 2016.Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of CO2 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.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 April, 2022 greenhouse gas concentrations reached record new highs and show no sign of slowing.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 per cent 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)
![Co2 graph](https://i0.wp.com/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/vancouversun/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-13-at-9.26.20 AM.png?resize=1498%2C942&ssl=1)
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![Cypress Mountain in the rain.](https://i0.wp.com/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/vancouversun/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/png0202nskihills-09-1.jpg?resize=1000%2C750&ssl=1)
Climate change threatens B.C.’s ski industry as ‘bad’ years expected to be new normal
Cherie Kroll does the math every time she steps into her skis.
So far this year, she’s skied five times, choosing not to go when conditions are poor. She paid $800 for her season pass at Grouse Mountain, including equipment and parking passes. That adds up to about $160 a visit.
“I don’t like those numbers,” she says.
Kroll, who learned to ski on the North Shore mountains as a kid, once skied so often that each visit cost less than $20. But she also remembers being 14 and scraping together $75 for a pass, only to find one run open.
“There have been bad years before,” she says, “but I do wonder if this will become the norm.”
Experts believe it will.
By mid-century, about half of the ski seasons on the B.C. coast will be warmer than this one, with “bad years” becoming as frequent as good years or even more frequent than good years, said University of B.C. climate scientist Michael Pidwirny.
Using historic data and climate models based on the current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, he estimates the average season at Whistler will be similar to this dismal season by 2050.
By 2080, some models predict, 50 to 75 per cent of North America’s ski resorts will disappear.
Read the full story here.
—Glenda Luymes
B.C. report says climate change brings health risk, as doctor fears ’colossal harms’
Communities across B.C. need to prepare for a climate-related health crisis like the deadly 2021 heat dome every year, according to the lead contributor to a report on health risks associated with climate change.
Dr. Michael Schwandt, a medical health officer with Vancouver Coastal Health, said the region needs to increase its resilience to extreme heat events, and risks “colossal harms” if it doesn’t.
“I think that while events like the 2021 heat dome aren’t expected to happen in a given summer, we need to be prepared for something like that every single summer going forward,” he said on Tuesday, referring to the weather phenomenon that shattered temperature records and was linked to more than 600 deaths in B.C.
“So that’s something that I would say our public health program spends a lot of time thinking about and working with partners to be more prepared for.”
The report on protecting health in a climate emergency, released by Dr. Patricia Daly, Vancouver Coastal Health’s chief medical officer, makes 17 recommendations about responding to health risks linked to extreme heat, wildfire smoke, flooding and droughts.
The report recommends updating municipal and provincial building codes, bylaws and rental standards to require cooling features such as air conditioning in new buildings and enable modifications to existing homes.
Read the full story here.
—The Canadian Press
Ottawa promised Canadians two billion new trees, Quebec wants to cut some down
The federal government committed to planting two billion trees across the country to restore natural habitats and fight climate change, and now Quebec wants to harvest some of them.
The provincial government is asking Ottawa to allow the local forestry industry to chop down trees in areas of the province hardest hit by last year’s forest fires.
Ottawa has committed more than $3 billion to help provinces, territories and organizations plant a total of two billion trees by the end of 2031 as part of a national effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
However, the 2 Billion Trees program does not fund trees designated for commercial use. But Quebec Natural Resources and Forests Minister Maite Blanchette Vezina says the record-setting 2023 fire season has had tremendous economic impacts in rural regions that depend on the forestry industry.
Read the full story here.
—The Canadian Press
![british columbia forest fires](https://i0.wp.com/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/vancouversun/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/GettyImages-1451980567-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1629&ssl=1)
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B.C. firefighters to get $16 million in extra equipment for 2024 fire season
The B.C. government will spend an additional $16 million for on-the-ground firefighting equipment as firefighters prepare for a busy 2024 season.
On Wednesday, the provincial government said it would also improve the B.C. Wildfire Service’s air fleet.
“By increasing our resources on the ground and in the air, we will have a greater ability to respond to wildfires when and where they happen,” said Forests Minister Bruce Ralston.
The $16 million for equipment will go toward pumps, camping equipment, safety gear, and medical and hygiene equipment.
The province is also purchasing two mass water-delivery systems that can be used for fire suppression and flood operations.
B.C.’s 2023 wildfire season was the worst on record. Six B.C. forest firefighters died — Devyn Gale, Zak Muise, Kenneth Patrick, Jaxon Billyboy, Blain Sonnenberg and Damian Dyson.
Read the full story here.
—David Carrigg
![flooding](https://i0.wp.com/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/vancouversun/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/png-1203n-borderflood-402.jpg?resize=1000%2C750&ssl=1)
Premier David Eby announces $76 million to better protect Abbotsford from flooding
The B.C. government announced Wednesday it’s providing $76.7 million for upgrades to an existing pump station in Abbotsford to improve flood protection.
Except for the efforts of residents to protect the pump station during catastrophic flooding in November 2021, it would have been overwhelmed, causing worse damage in the Abbotsford area of the Fraser Valley.
The upgrades will provide a flood wall to protect the station itself and increase pumping capacity.
It’s one element in a $1.6 billion City of Abbotsford plan that also includes building a second pump station and creating an enhanced flood storage area. The city has applied for assistance to the federal government, which had promised to provide significant funding for recovery and to increase resilience after the deadly 2021 floods.
B.C. Premier David Eby said Wednesday that process is taking too long, which is why the provincial government is providing money for improving the existing Barrowtown pump station now.
Read the full story here.
—Gordon Hoekstra
For threatened polar bears, the climate change diet is a losing proposition
For polar bears, the climate change diet is a losing proposition, a new study suggests.
With Arctic sea ice shrinking from climate change, many polar bears have to shift their diets to land during parts of the summer. A study looking at Hudson Bay polar bears tries to figure out if they can keep up their roly-poly figure, which is what’s needed and found that an overwhelming number of them are dropping the pounds no matter what they do to try to beef up their weight.
Some bears find a lot of food — berries, eggs, sea birds and even caribou antlers — but it takes so much effort, so many calories are burned trying to eat, that they end up losing weight and expending more energy than they take in, according to a study in Tuesday’s journal Nature Communications.
Other bears go into a stage of semi-hibernation, don’t do much, but they also shed the pounds, so either way doesn’t work, said study lead author Anthony Pagano, a U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist.
Researchers found that 19 of the 20 bears studied dropped an average of 47 pounds (21 kilograms) over three weeks of being studied in research that monitored their calorie intake, energy use and respiration in the wild. That’s losing about 7% of their body mass on average in just 21 days, the study concluded.
Read the full story here.
—The Associated Press
EVs, heat pumps and increased housing density mark new challenges to B.C. Hydro’s $36 billion capital plan
B.C. Hydro has done well to accommodate basic home electrification upgrades, but faces hurdles when it comes to supplying power for more ambitious, higher density housing without natural gas, according to contractor Cory Byron.
“(That) is where things get a little bit crazy,” said Byron, owner of the Lower-Mainland’s Vancity Electric.
Amps are the basic measure of capacity in an electric circuit. The typical new, detached house is built with a 200-amp electric service, whereas older homes have 100-amp electric service.
Byron said those older 100-amp services were adequate for a few major appliances, such as a stove and an electric clothes dryer. Upgrading to 200 amps so detached homes can handle heat pumps and Stage 2 electric vehicle chargers occurs mostly without problems.
However, densification of neighbourhoods — building homes with basement suites and laneway houses, as well as charging stations for EVs and heat pumps — require at least 400-amp service, which Byron said is testing B.C. Hydro’s existing infrastructure.
Read the full story here.
—Derrick Penner
![People walk past the Lululemon store at Burrard and Robson Streets in downtown Vancouver, B.C. on Wednesday, December 13, 2023.](https://i0.wp.com/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/vancouversun/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/png-1213n-lululemon-104.jpg?resize=1000%2C750&ssl=1)
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B.C. group says Lululemon is ’greenwashing’ as its emissions rise, wants competition probe
A non-profit group in B.C. announced Monday it has asked Canada’s Competition Bureau to investigate athletic-wear giant Lululemon, alleging the company is misleading customers about its environmental impacts.
A statement from Stand.earth says Lululemon has been using the slogan “Be Planet” as part of its “impact agenda” released in 2020, but the company’s own reports reveal a doubling of greenhouse-gas emissions since then.
Lululemon’s 2022 impact report says its “products and actions help lead (the) industry toward a climate-stable future where nature and people thrive.”
It says the Vancouver-based company aims to meet a series of climate action targets by 2030, including a 60-per-cent reduction in emissions intensity for “Scope 3” operations, encompassing the making and shipping of clothing globally.
But Lululemon’s reports, cited by Stand.earth, show total emissions for that category rose to nearly 1.7 million tonnes, up from about 830,000 tonnes in 2020.
Read the full story here.
—The Canadian Press
Climate change Is fuelling a new type of anxiety, therapists say
When psychotherapist Caroline Hickman was asked to help a child overcome a fear of dogs, she introduced them to her Labradoodle, Murphy.
“You get the child to feel confident in relation to the dog and teach the child skills to manage a dog,” she says. “You build the skills, build the competence, build the confidence, and then they’re less scared of dogs generally.”
Climate anxiety is a different beast, Hickman says. “We don’t 100 per cent know how to deal with it. And it would be a huge mistake to try and treat it like other anxieties that we are very familiar with that have been around for decades. This one is much, much worse.”
In the most critical cases, climate anxiety disrupts the ability to function day to day. Children and young people in this category feel alienation from friends and family, distress when thinking about the future and intrusive thoughts about who will survive, according to Hickman’s research.
Patients obsessively check for extreme weather, read climate change studies and pursue radical activism. Some, devastatingly, consider suicide as the only solution. And Hickman isn’t the only expert seeing this. In her book A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, Sarah Ray describes a student who had such severe “self-loathing eco-guilt” that she stopped consuming much at all, including food.
Most people’s concern about global warming isn’t that pronounced. It can be difficult to pin down exactly what climate anxiety is, and therefore what to do about it. Especially for adults, there’s still a stigma in admitting that it’s severely affecting your life.
Read the full story here.
—Bloomberg News
Climate change causes flowering period in Spain’s Doñana National Park to start 22 days earlier, say researchers
New research from the University of Seville has found that climate change is causing the flowering period in Spain’s Doñana National Park to start earlier by 22 days.
The scientists investigated how the flowering of 51 species of shrubs, bushes and trees has changed over the last 35 years in Doñana National Park so as to understand how plant communities are responding to climate change in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.
Over this period, the average temperature in the area has increased by 1 C and the minimum temperature by as much as 2 C, according to the study.
As a result, the community’s peak flowering time, the time when the greatest number of species are in flower, has been brought forward by 22 days, from 9 May to 17 April.
Researchers say 55 per cent of species now find an overcrowded neighbourhood of flowers, which can lead to increased competition for pollinating insects’ attention.
—Tiffany Crawford
World temperatures go above 1.5 C warming threshold for a year: climate scientists
For the first time on record, global warming has exceeded temperatures of 1.5 C over a 12-month period, European Union climate scientists reported this week.
Earth also had its hottest January on record, beating a record set in 2020, with an average temperature of 13.14 C or 0.70 C above the 1991 to 2020 average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The global mean temperature for the past twelve months (Feb. 2023 to Jan. 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.64 C above the 1991 to 2020 average and 1.52 C above pre-industrial times, the agency reported.
The EU agency blamed human-caused climate change and the El Niño weather phenomenon that warms the Pacific Ocean for driving the record heat over the past year.
Last summer, B.C. had its worst wildfire season, and experts are concerned that this year’s low snowpack could lead to another summer of brutal drought and wildfires. Last week, officials with B.C.’s River Forecast Centre said the province’s snowpack is almost 40 per cent lower than normal for this time of year.
Read the full story here.
—Tiffany Crawford
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Guides and Links
B.C. Flood: Read all our coverage on the Fraser Valley and beyond
Frequently asked questions about climate change: NASA
What is climate change? A really simple guide from the BBC
Climate change made B.C. heat wave 150 times more likely, study concludes
B.C.’s heat wave: Intense weather event is linked to climate crisis, say scientists
Expert: climate change expected to bring longer wildfire seasons and more area burned
COVID-19 may have halted massive protests, but youth are taking their fight for the future to the courts
Climate displacement a growing concern in B.C. as extreme weather forces residents out of their homes
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