What the new UN report warning of climate impacts means for Canadians
Expect more heat waves, fires and flood events in future
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once again issued a dire report warning that without a radical reduction of our greenhouse gas emissions, we are on a course for global warming that will have grave consequences.
Monday's report, which examined several scenarios, including one of low carbon emissions and one of high carbon emissions, or a business-as-usual approach, said the planet has already warmed almost 1.2 C above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC is calling on world governments to reduce CO2 emissions to limit that warming to 1.5 C, though it appears we may hit that threshold within the next two decades unless drastic reductions are made.
We are already seeing the effects of climate change across Canada, including more intense wildfires, heat waves and drought. There is nowhere — and no one — that will not be affected.
Here are just some of the impacts we can expect across the country.
Deep changes in the Arctic
The Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, and according to the report, it's "virtually certain" that it will continue for the rest of the century. And that comes with many consequences.
Polar regions have begun to experience extreme heat events at more than three times the global rate. According to the report, this is expected to continue and will lengthen the fire season.
Permafrost has been thawing in the Arctic since the 1980s. This is particularly concerning because it releases methane, another greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
While winter snow may increase in the far north and central Arctic, the length of snow in the spring has been declining and will likely continue to do so.
Then there's the ice. Arctic sea ice cover is at its lowest level since 1850, and the Arctic is projected to be practically ice-free at its summer minimum in roughly 30 years.
"We have already committed to more warming, more ice loss from glaciers and ice sheets, and more sea level rise," Ella Gilbert, a post-doctoral research assistant at the University of Reading who was not involved in writing the report, said in a statement.
"We will probably see summers without Arctic sea ice before 2050 and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will continue to shrink. We may even be hurtling towards unpredictable and irreversible tipping points in the climate system."
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All these changes have a snowball effect. Polar regions are deeply important to regulating the global temperature. Less snow means more sunlight is absorbed by the darker water that's been exposed, which in turn leads to further warming not only of the region, but of the entire planet. It's what is referred to as a positive feedback loop.
These changes deeply affect those who live there, particularly Indigenous people who rely on snow cover and the cold weather.
"These aren't surprising issues. [The] Indigenous world who rely upon the well-being of their environment and the well-being of their climate and the land and the waters and everything that we depend on for our food source has been impacted for many, many years," said Siila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit environmental, climate change and human rights advocate, who was not involved in the report.
"And we have been signaling these messages for many, many years."
More heat events
In a summer where fires continue to rage across British Columbia, and the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada was reached in June — 49.6 C in Lytton, B.C. — it may not come as a surprise to many Canadians that heat events are only expected to worsen.
In northern North America, which includes most of Canada, the report found that "temperature increases are projected to be very large compared to the global average, particularly in the winter."
"Heat waves, and changes in fire weather — that is the frequency or the likelihood of getting the combination of dry, hot conditions that lead to wildfires like the ones we're seeing this year — those increase along with temperature," said Greg Flato, senior research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada and vice-chair of the IPCC group that authored the report.
"The higher the temperature gets, the more frequent, and the more severe these heat waves will become and the more frequent and more severe the fire weather conditions will become."
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A toll on our oceans and water
One of the effects of a warming climate is rising sea levels. The report found that it is "virtually certain" that sea levels will rise around the world throughout the 21st century and will "continue to rise for centuries to millennia."
That's not only due to a warming ocean which then expands, but also a result of melting glaciers and ice sheets, something that we're seeing now across Canada, but also in Greenland.
"So sea level rise will continue to increase. And the rate of sea level rise will depend on future emissions," Flato said.
"But for coastal communities that has implications then for the frequency or the likelihood of severe inundation flooding, high sea level extremes … so depending on where you live, that will be an increasing threat."
However, the report found that the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean has warmed slower than the global average or slightly cooled. But it has also increased in salinity, which can affect ecosystems.
In the Rockies, the glaciers are melting which may create more glacial lakes. Due to temperature differences, experts also expect to see shifts in when rain transitions to snow and the range of snow and ice conditions over the next few decades.
In Ontario, parts of Quebec and the Atlantic region, it's very likely that there will be increases in the amount of rain as well as extreme precipitation. This means there is likely to be more flooding not only along our waterways, but also in places that normally don't flood.
Hotter cities
Most people across the world live in cities and Canada is no different. But living in these concrete jungles means that the effects of increasing heat waves are exacerbated. This is referred to as the urban heat island effect.
This is because tall buildings close to one another prevent natural air circulation and also absorb more heat. That heat is then re-emitted at night.
Increasing urbanization has made temperature extremes in cities worse, particularly for nighttime extremes.
In many cases, this means that air pollution worsens as surface ozone particles increase. This is exacerbated by rising fires and smoke.
More urban development and more frequent heat waves with more hot days and warmer nights will only add to the heat stress in cities.
The difference of the intensity and frequency of these projected impacts matter with even percentages of a degree. The IPCC's special report released in 2018 titled Global Warming of 1.5 C illustrated the difference between warming of 1.5 C and 2 C. It illustrated that consequences and effects on humanity increased drastically at 2 C of warming. That's why it's important to cut emissions now.
"What these low emission scenarios illustrate is that we do have the capability to limit warming if, collectively, we're able to reduce emissions quickly enough and get to net zero by the middle of this century, we can limit warming to one and a half degrees or somewhere not too far above that," Flato said.
"From my perspective, that's kind of empowering in the sense that there's something we can do about it. It's not an inevitable consequence. So we have agency, and we can act. We can act individually; we can act collectively."
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With files from Karen Pauls
Critics question B.C.'s growing fossil fuel subsidies in wake of dire new climate change report
'It's as if we're paying someone to go around and throw gasoline on the ground,' analyst says
Following the release of an alarming new report on climate change that the UN's secretary general said "must sound a death knell" for the fossil fuel industry, environmentalists in B.C. are asking why the province is still giving billions to subsidize oil and gas producers.
On Monday, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report showing that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are already high enough to guarantee climate disruption for decades or even centuries to come, and humans are "unequivocally" to blame.
Those dire warnings have B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau calling for concrete action from the province.
"Our climate plan does not meet our targets. This government continues to subsidize the oil and gas industry," she said Monday.
"We need to see concerted urgent action and a plan backed up by funding to respond to climate change right now."
UN Secretary General António Guterres said the IPCC's findings "must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet."
But according to the environmental group Stand Earth, the B.C. government will give away a record-breaking $1.3 billion to subsidize the fossil fuel industry this year, including $421 million in tax credits for fracking wells.
Tom Green, a climate solutions policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, said most British Columbians don't realize the extent to which the province is propping up the industry.
"It's as if we're paying someone to go around and throw gasoline on the ground, in front of the wildfire fighters," he told CBC News.
According to Clean Energy B.C., about two-thirds of the energy used in the province still comes from fossil fuels. Green says time is running out to change that.
"Each tonne of fossil fuels that we burn, each tonne of CO2 that we add to the atmosphere is a tonne we can't afford anymore," he said.
'An opportunity to make a difference'
In a tweet addressing the IPCC report, Premier John Horgan acknowledged the obvious consequences of runaway climate change in B.C., including recent record-breaking heat and devastating wildfires.
He touted B.C.'s current renewable energy plan, but added "there's much more to be done to build the cleaner economy [and] brighter future that people and our planet need."
However, he did not offer any hint of what further action the province might take or when that might happen.
Kathryn Harrison, a professor of political science at the University of B.C., said there's little political motivation for the government to move away from subsidizing fossil fuels, despite the clear consequences for the climate.
"They make easy money from royalties from oil and gas and coal production, creating jobs — and creating jobs in the four-year electoral cycle is a great way to get re-elected," she said.
For Robin Cox, head of the Climate Action Leadership Masters Program at Royal Roads University in Victoria, the IPCC report does offer some hope.
"It's an opportunity to make a difference, to take advantage of this narrowing window in order to do the things that we need to do to get on with it so that we're reducing our global emissions ... while at the same time preparing for the unavoidable impacts," she said.
Cox said that will mean taking "much more aggressive" action to reduce emissions, far beyond the modest targets of previous years.
"It needs to be an expectation of all government funding that emissions reduction is absolutely incorporated," she said.
"The B.C. government came out with a climate preparedness and adaptation strategy recently and it's quite broad and comprehensive, but in my estimation, it is nowhere near as assertive as it needs to be in terms of actually addressing this."
With files from Baneet Braich, On The Coast and Reuters
A ‘death knell’ for fossil fuels?
By Kieran Leavitt
Mon., Aug. 9, 2021timer4 min. read
EDMONTON—An alarming new climate-change report has once again thrust Canada’s oil-and-gas industry into the spotlight, but the political face of the sector, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, was quick to throw cold water on the notion that the world can simply stop using fossil fuels.
The premier found himself answering questions Monday about a report newly released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, one that was worked on by 234 scientists from around the globe.
It found that in about 10 years, global temperatures will whip past levels the international community has deemed dangerously warm, bringing extreme weather and rolling climate disasters. In a statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the more than 3,000-page report should be “code red for humanity” and a “death knell for coal and fossil fuels.”
Speaking to reporters in Edmonton, Kenney said he hadn’t read the new UN report, but that major producers in Alberta have committed to reducing emissions to net-zero by 2050.
Alberta is the world’s third largest oil-producing jurisdiction.
“The notion that we can shut off the entire major industrialized economy with the flick of a switch is patently unrealistic,” he said.
“The vast majority of energy consumed around the world is derived from fossil fuels,” he said. “There is no credible way to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel energy anytime in the foreseeable future.”
For years, Kenney has championed the province’s energy sector as it has weathered storm after storm — including sinking prices in recent years and during the COVID-19 pandemic —even as companies have collapsed and thousands of jobs have disappeared.
The federal government has stepped in at times to help, including with its purchase of the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline extension project in 2018 in a bid to get more Alberta crude to the British Columbia coast for export overseas.
During Kenney’s successful 2019 election campaign, he ran on a pledge to boost “jobs, the economy and pipelines.”
Once he became premier, Kenney continued his advocacy for the sector, establishing a $30-million rapid response “war room” to dispel what it deemed as myths in media and online about the province’s energy sector. The operation has since been mired in controversy and had most of its funding cut at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kenney also struck an inquiry that sought to investigate allegations of foreign funded environmentalists who attack the province’s industry. The resulting report hasn’t yet been publicly released by his government and the inquiry’s critics have slammed it as the stuff of conspiracy theories.
Meanwhile, no new pipelines have been built during his term and climate alarms have begun to ring louder.
Chris Severson-Baker, the Alberta director for the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think-tank, said that the Kenney government “is entirely out of touch with where the majority of Canadians are on the issue of climate change.”
In cross-country polling, climate change is often in the top three most important issues for Canadians.
In a report released in July, the Pembina Institute said that Alberta accounts for 38 per cent of Canada’s emissions and that the province’s emissions increased by 17 per cent between 2005 and 2019. The oil-and-gas sector accounts for 51 per cent of Alberta’s overall emissions, the report noted. Much of Canada’s success in emissions reduction over the past 15 years has, in fact, been offset by transportation growth and the energy industry, said Severson-Baker.
Severson-Baker said that the Alberta government gives mixed signals when it says it supports climate action but then challenges the federal carbon tax in court. This could cause uncertainty for investors who may want to put money into Alberta, he said.
“In Alberta, we need to come to grips with the fact that our market is changing, and we need to prepare for that future scenario,” he said.
Alberta could boost carbon-capture technology so that oil produces less carbon, said Severson-Baker, and it could produce more low-carbon natural gas.
“But there are some streams of oil and gas in Alberta that are high-cost, high carbon and likely not going to be economically viable in a reduced demand environment,” he said.
“The best way that Alberta can respond to this future scenario is to adopt a target that is consistent with the target that Canada has adopted,” he added, “and actually come up with a plan that would meet that target and implement it.”
In April, Ottawa pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
In a statement to the Star, Tim McMillan, the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said that the demand for oil and gas is growing, will get past pre-pandemic levels in two years and is “expected to grow for decades to come.”
“We absolutely believe there is space in the global market for Canada’s oil and natural gas production,” he said.
“With our continuous emissions intensity reductions and our leading role in clean technology investments in Canada, the industry has demonstrated we are committed to playing a pivotal role in helping Canada meet its stated emissions reduction goals.”
Kieran Leavitt is an Edmonton-based political reporter for the Toronto Star.
Big Oil’s no-good, very-bad week continues
May was a rough month for oil companies. It started when the agency that was created to defend fossil-fuel security made a game-changing proclamation: that winning the fight against climate change means no more oil, gas or coal deposits should be developed beyond projects already committed as of 2021. “There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway,” the International Energy Agency’s landmark report declared in late May.
To limit the long-term rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C, it said governments and industry must wean themselves off fossil fuels ASAP, push for energy efficiency in all walks of life, and invest trillions in renewable energy.
Coming from the Paris-based IEA, an intergovernmental body founded in the wake of the 1973/74 OPEC oil embargo to assure global energy supply, the report turned heads. Overseen by the energy ministers of 30 major economies, the IEA has generally defended fossil-fuel interests. But with most countries missing their emission-reduction targets and catastrophe looming, the IEA finally picked a side.
“This gap between rhetoric and action needs to close,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol. “Doing so requires nothing short of a total transformation of the energy systems that underpin our economies.”
Nine days later, on May 26, calls to close that gap came fast and furious. Chevron shareholders voted 61% in favour of an activist proposal asking the oil company to cut its total greenhouse gas emissions, including those coming out of customers’ tailpipes, emissions known as Scope 3.
That same day, at least two ExxonMobil board members were unseated in a bid to, as Reuters put it, “force the company’s leadership to reckon with the risk of failing to adjust its business strategy to match global efforts to combat climate change.”
Eli Kasargod-Staub, the executive director of Majority Action, a shareholder group, told The Guardian, “For the first time in history, responsible shareholders have breached the walls protecting recalcitrant boards of directors.”
Also that day, a Dutch court ordered Shell to reduce its GHGs by 45% by 2030, based on 2019 levels, after determining that Shell’s climate plans were inadequate. Pundits began calling it Black Wednesday and ‘a day of reckoning’ for Big Oil as courtrooms and boardrooms turned on industry.
“For the first time in history, responsible shareholders have breached the walls protecting recalcitrant boards of directors.”
-Eli Kasargod-Staub, executive director of Majority Action
“This is a monumental victory for our planet, for our children and a big leap towards a livable future for everyone,” said Donald Pols, director of Friends of the Earth Netherlands.
Though Royal Dutch Shell said it will appeal the ruling, more good news was announced May 26: Canada’s largest oil company, Suncor, committed to going net-zero by 2050, adding it would slash emissions across its value chain by a third by 2030.
Luckily, the IEA’s report, Net Zero by 2050, “shows that there are still pathways to reach net-zero by 2050,” said Birol. He called the IEA’s prescribed course “the most technically feasible, cost‐effective and socially acceptable. Even so, that pathway remains narrow and extremely challenging, requiring all stakeholders – governments, businesses, investors and citizens – to take action this year and every year after.”
The report sets out 400 milestones necessary to achieve net-zero by 2050. Most important: ensuring that developing economies receive financing and technological aid to build their energy systems equitably and sustainably. Birol insists that a world powered by clean electricity means huge opportunities, “with the potential to create millions of new jobs and boost economic growth.”
“Big Oil and Gas has just lost a very powerful shield,” summed up David Tong, a senior campaigner with Washington, D.C.’s Oil Change International.
But the IEA’s shift doesn’t mean the path to 2050 will be smooth. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers dismissed the report as “unrealistic.” Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage predicted Alberta’s fossil-fuel sector “will continue to grow and thrive.” Large emitting countries such as Japan, Australia and the Philippines bucked the proposed ban on new development, claiming natural gas, oil and in some cases even coal still have roles to play.
It doesn’t help that the IEA has been sending out mixed messages. Weeks after the release, as OilPrice.com pointed out, “the agency called on OPEC+ to increase production as demand for oil rebounded faster and stronger than the agency had apparently expected.” By July, benchmark crude oil prices had surged to multi-year highs after a breakdown in negotiations with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
In its July oil market report, the IEA cautioned that “while prices at these levels could increase the pace of electrification of the transport sector and help accelerate energy transitions, they could also put a drag on the economic recovery.” It added, “Volatility does not help ensure orderly and secure energy transitions.”
Meanwhile, back in Canada, oil industry advocates continue to suggest that the sector should be positioning itself to capitalize on the next oil boom. However, in a report released last month, Jeffrey Craig of Veritas Investment Research said, “Given the pressure to both cut emissions and invest in renewable energy, we expect the super majors to shed mostly upstream oil and gas assets [in the oil sands] to fund investments into renewables.”
Right on cue, when BP slashed its long-term oil price outlook in late June, the company’s oil sands investments were rendered “worthless,” Reuters reports. The fate of those stranded assets remains to be seen.
South of the border, oil majors are feeling the heat this week as Democratic senators proposed a climate pollution tax that could cost Exxon, Chevron and other big emitters billions annually while establishing a “Polluters Pay Climate Fund.” The draft bill could see US$500 billion raised over 10 years to be used toward investments in communities facing fossil-fuel-driven climate impacts, including extreme flooding, rising sea levels and a more severe wildfire season.
Corporate Knights director of research Ralph Torrie points out that “the smart money and long-game investors” have been pivoting from fossils to renewables for years. “If the IEA can get out in front of that parade, it can only help.” Torrie suggests that the right question to be asking is not “What will happen?” but “What must happen?” if we are to avert truly dangerous climate change.
While new technologies may help power the transition, he credits the agency for seeing energy efficiency as a resource: “We must thread the eye of a needle here, and there is only time now for one attempt at it.”
A version of this story appeared in the Summer Issue of Corporate Knights magazine.
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