This article was written by Amanda Stephenson and was published in the Globe & Mail on September 27, 2023.

Even if no new government climate policies are introduced before 2030, global demand for fossil fuels will still peak before the end of the decade, a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) states.

The report released Tuesday says the worldwide rollout of key technologies such as renewable power, electric vehicles and heat pumps is happening so quickly that demand for coal, oil and natural gas is set to peak within the next 10 years.

The IEA says this means that no new major oil- and gas-extraction projects are needed anywhere around the globe, nor any new coal mines, mine extensions or unabated coal plants.

“If the world is successful in bringing down fossil demand quickly enough to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, new projects would face major commercial risks,” the IEA stated.

Still, the report’s authors pointed out that while the transition is occurring, more still needs to be done to hold global warming to the 1.5-degree-Celsius target the international community agreed to at the 2015 climate summit in Paris.

While 1.5 C is still achievable, the IEA said, the paths available to get there are narrowing. Global carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector reached a record high of 37 billion tonnes in 2022.

The world is set to invest a record US $1.8trillion in clean energy in 2023, but the IEA said that needs to climb to US$4.5-trillion by the early 2030s in order to achieve net zero by 2050.

“The energy sector is changing faster than many people think, but more needs to be done and time is short,” the report states.

For all countries, measures including ramping up renewables, improving energy efficiency, cutting methane emissions and increasing electrification will be necessary to achieve global climate targets, the IEA said.

All of these things are possible using existing and cost-effective technologies, it said. For example, reducing methane emissions from oil and natural-gas operations by 75 per cent from today’s levels would cost US$75-billion in cumulative spending to 2030, the IEA estimates – the equivalent of just 2 per cent of the net income brought in by the industry in 2022.

While major investment in new oil production is not required, continued investment in existing oil and gas assets and already approved fossil-fuel projects will be necessary, the IEA said, in order to avoid damaging price spikes or supply gluts during the energy transition.

In addition, it said rapid progress on carbon capture and storage will be required before 2030 in order to hold temperatures to 1.5 C. While the number of proposed carbon-capture projects worldwide nearly tripled in 2021 and has doubled again since then–thanks to strong policy support– only about 5 percent of announced projects have reached the final investment stage.

“Although the recent surge of announced projects for CC US[ Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage] and hydrogen is encouraging, the majority have yet to reach final investment decision and need further policy support to boost demand and facilitate new enabling infrastructure,” the IEA stated.

The IEA report also urges governments to adopt a “build big” mentality. Electricity transmission and distribution grids need to expand by about two million kilometres each year by 2030 to reach the IEA’s net-zero scenario, but the organization pointed out that building grids today can take more than a decade.

All in all, to hold global temperatures to 1.5 C and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of warming, by 2035 emissions need to have declined by 80 per cent from 2022 levels in developed countries and by 60 per cent in developing countries, the IEA said.

Data shows city was part of a minority of the Earth’s surface that was merely warmer than average

This article was written by Kate Allen and was published in the Toronto Star on September 23, 2023.

The planet is getting hotter — that’s undeniable. But amidst this trend, the summer of 2023 was exceptional. In June, July and August, the average global temperatures shredded previous highs.

So many parts of the world saw heat records broken that it would be hard to list them all — places as far apart as Peru, Japan and Algeria all sweltered. Of course, many parts of Canada seared, too.

But not Toronto. Summer 2023 here was not that remarkable.

There were some hot stretches, for sure. But no heat records were broken — not even close. We logged an almost exactly average number of very hot days, compared to historic norms. So what’s going on?

Toronto has not been spared from the effects of climate change. Year to year there is lots of variability, but each decade has been trending hotter. In short: we got lucky. When will that luck run out? Scientists are typically a restrained bunch. But this summer they did not hold back: “Astonishing” was a word one used in July. “Extraordinary,” another said that same month.

“Totally unprecedented and terrifying,” a third scientist tweeted around the same time.

They were reacting to heat records toppling worldwide as huge swaths of the globe baked under extreme temperatures. When they made these remarks, in early July, it had been an exceptionally hot week, following an exceptionally hot month — the hottest June on record globally.

But the records didn’t stop falling then. July earned the dubious designation of being the hottest month since the advent of modern instrumentation and record-keeping, according to both U.S. and European climate agencies. August did not slack: it was the hottest August ever, too. What stunned scientists was not just how many records fell, but by how much.

Normally, a record-breaking month might be a few hundredths of a degree hotter than the last. But this summer felled records by much bigger margins, and the Northern Hemisphere summer as a whole was almost 1.5 degrees hotter than the historic average — a symbolic threshold and a scary preview.

Every country’s current heat-related death toll is likely a massive undercount. Doctors and scientists call extreme heat the “silent killer,” because it so often strikes by exacerbating other conditions, and is rarely the cause listed on a death certificate. One study looked at how many more people died than normal in Europe last summer and concluded that more than 61,000 people were killed from heat-related causes alone.

Billions of data points go into these monthly global averages: they are calculated by processing temperature data from thousands of land-based weather stations, ocean buoys, ships and more. The final figure blends data from both poles, the equator, and everywhere in between.

To drive the global average that high, a lot of the world had to be a lot hotter than normal. But not everywhere followed the trend: a few small pockets were just average, or even cold, and a minority of the Earth’s surface was merely warmer than average, but not much warmer than average or truly record-breaking. Toronto was nestled among that minority.

We did have heat waves in July and early September, but by historical norms, summer 2023 was dead average. Between 1976 and 2005, Toronto had an average of 12 “very hot days,” defined as days the mercury hit at least 30 C, according to the Climate Atlas of Canada. That’s exactly how many there have been as of this week.

“It’s a little bit like looking at the performance of a baseball player like Babe Ruth,” explains Bill Merryfield, a research scientist for Environment and Climate Change Canada who specializes in longterm predictions.

“If you look at one particular game, he might happen to strike out four times. And if that’s the only data you get, you would probably conclude he was a pretty lousy batter. But if you look at an entire season or better yet, an entire career, you get a much clearer picture.”

Next summer might be average again. It might be a hot one — especially because El Niño, a natural climate pattern that acts like turning up the global thermostat, began ramping up this past spring, and usually exerts its strongest influence the year after. It could even be cold.

But climate change is loading the dice, making hot summers more likely, and pushing how hot those summers are into higher extremes.

In a future where the world reins in carbon emissions significantly, Toronto is predicted to get about 28 “very hot” 30-plus degree days a year by 2050, according to the Climate Atlas — more than double the current number.

In a future where we keep burning fossil fuels and pumping large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we could get as many as 80 very hot days a year by 2080. Many other parts of Canada were not as lucky as Toronto this summer. Nine weather stations across five provinces and territories saw all-time maximum temperature records fall, according to data provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada.

One of those was in Norman Wells, a town in the Northwest Territories. It hit 37.9 C in early July — hotter than Toronto ever got by several degrees, even though the town sits not far below the Arctic Circle. All nine of the record-breaking weather stations were in the North, where climate change is happening faster than in southern latitudes.

In B.C., many places struggled with far hotter temperatures than Toronto as they also battled wildfires. These extremes hit just two years after the last brutal summer in the province, in 2021, when a heat dome killed 619 people and the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada was measured in Lytton, one day before the town burned to the ground.

Torontonians should not take this mercifully average summer as a sign that this city will be spared from climate change’s effects in the future, experts say.

Until recently, in B.C. and the rest of the Pacific Northwest, “there was a sense that perhaps that also might be a bit of a climate refuge. But certainly what happened in the summer of 2021 … really kind of dispelled that sense,” says Merryfield. “So I don’t think there’s any particular reason to think that climate impacts in Toronto won’t be substantial.”

July earned the dubious designation of being the hottest month since the advent of modern instrumentation and recordkeeping, according to both U.S. and European climate agencies. August did not slack: it was the hottest August ever, too

This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on September 23, 2023.

It’s a 4,000-kilometre drive from Calgary, which hosted the World Petroleum Congress this week, to New York, where the United Nations held a Climate Ambition Summit. The metaphorical distance between the two gatherings seems closer to infinite.

At the oil congress, while the theme was the path to net zero, the emphasis was on oil. The CEO of Exxon said it was “wishful thinking that we’re going to flip the switch” to clean energy. At the climate summit, the focus was lack of progress. “Climate action is dwarfed by the scale of the challenge,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He pointed blame at oil producers.

Both views are true. It’s a fact that the world will not instantly end its long dependence on the fossil fuels responsible for alarming and increasing levels of climate change. No serious person suggests such. It’s also a fact that oil producers have long sought to slow the shift away from fossil fuels.

The most important fact is this: while the world remains dependent on fossil fuels, rapid change is possible and necessary. That was the conclusion of a UN report in early September. Ambition and actions “must be accelerated.”

The International Energy Agency, which for decades focused on oil, has mapped out a road to net zero: cutting oil usage by three-quarters by 2050 and natural gas by half. This month, the IEA predicted the “cusp of a historic turning point,” with the burning of fossil fuels set to peak within the next few years.

Tension between oil and climate action is felt everywhere but especially so in a country like Canada, one of the leading producers of fossil fuels but also one where climate policies are escalating. There may also be a bridge in Canada – illustrated by the ambitions of the federal government and the pledges of Canadian Natural Resources, the largest oil and gas producer.

In 2022, Ottawa detailed its plan to cut at least 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, including from fossil fuel production, as part of the Paris Agreement. Ottawa is expected to soon release details of a proposed emissions cap on the fossil fuel industry. No numbers have been offered but Alberta – both the United Conservative Party and the Opposition NDP – has rejected the feasibility of a 40-per-cent cut from fossil fuels emissions by 2030.

Yet take a look at Canadian Natural Resources. Last November, citing support from the federal and Alberta governments (both are readying billions of dollars in subsidies for carbon capture technology), the company announced its target to cut emissions by 40 per cent, by 2035.

That’s close to what Ottawa is talking about. The bluster of public debate often makes the divide sound like an unbridgeable canyon. The reality is there is a lot of common ground. Public policy to reduce methane has spurred Canadian Natural to nearly halve such emissions from 2018 to 2022. It has helped reduce the company’s total emissions by 3 per cent, from a peak in 2020.

Much more has to happen, soon. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, in a recent meeting with The Globe’s editorial board, said Ottawa is working to ensure its rules are realistic – things that “can actually be done” – and are meant to “ensure the work is done.”

Oil companies have to be pushed. The industrial carbon tax, for one example, should be stricter. Suncor estimates its carbon costs at just $1.70 a barrel from now through the early 2030s. And ambitions in the oil business vary. Suncor aims to cut its emissions by about 20 per cent by 2030. Cenovus aims for 35 per cent by 2035. Imperial Oil doesn’t publish a nearterm goal for its total emissions. Meanwhile, the companies are booking near-record profits, while major investments in emissions are still pending.

There is one last big fact. What the oil companies do matters and they deserve attention. But what everyone else does matters just as much. About 80 per cent of the emissions from oil comes from burning the product, whether driving, flying or otherwise. It can’t be free to pollute from the tailpipe of one’s own car, while railing against oil companies. The UN warning this month of lack of progress on climate called for “an all-of-society approach.”

The gulf between oil and climate appears vast but the divide is less than it seems. As Ottawa and Canadian Natural are showing, there is common ground. It is there major progress can be made.

This opinion was written by Catherine McKenna and was published in the Globe & Mail on September 20, 2023.

Oil companies spending record profits on shareholder dividends, executive compensation while investing a small fraction in clean energy

Former federal minister of environment and climate change. CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions and chair of the United Nations Secretary-General’s expert group on net-zero emissions. She is participating in the UN Climate Ambition Summit in New York on Wednesday.

This summer scorched the Earth, breaking heat records globally and setting off wildfires that choked North American cities. And Suncor chief executive officer Rich Kruger? He chose this moment to announce that his company will double down on oil sands production and sideline its renewables strategy.

Regrettably, Suncor is not a rogue producer. Recently, Shell and BP announced plans to slowwalk clean energy and pump more fossil fuels – the main cause of the climate crisis. They chose to spend the vast majority of their record profits on shareholder dividends and executive compensation while investing a small fraction in the clean energy transition. Incredibly, at the same time, oil sands companies demand that Canadian taxpayers spend even more to subsidize their carbon capture projects. This contravenes the basic principle that polluters should pay for the damage they cause.

These announcements are shameful, but at least we know what we’re dealing with. After years of pious corporate announcements and feel-good advertising, it’s magical thinking to believe the oil and gas sector has anything but its own profits at heart. Especially after ExxonMobil – where Mr. Kruger was a 40year veteran – spent decades hiding, denying and downplaying the climate risks posed by fossil fuels. This is why it’s time to do what a majority of Canadians – including in Alberta – believe is necessary and put a hard cap on emissions from Canada’s oil and gas industry.

We need to get serious about net zero and not let bad actors make the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees – and averting the worst effects of climate change – meaningless.

We must reduce global emissions in half by 2030 if we are to achieve net zero by 2050. That requires far more ambitious efforts to reduce emissions now while scaling up clean-energy investments. Bogus plans to reach net zero at the 11th hour exacerbate the climate crisis and amount to nothing more than greenwashing.

Last year, at COP27, the United Nations released a report, Integrity Matters, produced by its HighLevel Expert Group, which I chaired. The report establishes clear criteria for net-zero commitments: Any company or region setting net-zero targets cannot continue to build or invest in new fossil fuel supply. Companies cannot defer real emissions reductions by buying carbon credits. Nor can they privately lobby against climate action while claiming to be climate champions. Progress on net-zero commitments must be publicly reported and independently verified. These are tangible, specific standards that combined can move the world in the right direction.

But one year later, while other industries have started to step up, many oil and gas producers are making things worse while hiding behind trade associations such as the Pathways Alliance – a consortium that includes Suncor – and which is currently being investigated by Canada’s Competition Bureau for misleading advertising.

How bad is it? A 2021 report found that several Pathways member companies – Suncor, Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources – have no plans to stop approving new extraction projects or exploration. Investigative reporting found that the Pathways Alliance lobbied to delay and weaken the proposed federal cap on oil and gas emissions.

On top of this, a report released last week found that Canada is poised to be the world’s second largest developer of new oil and gas extraction to 2050. The associated emissions generated would be equivalent to opening 117 new coal-fired power plants. This is wrong and wrongheaded for both the climate and for the economy.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it best: “Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness. Such investments will soon be stranded assets – a blot on the landscape and a blight on investment portfolios. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Indeed, Canada’s oil and gas sector could be part of the solution to the climate crisis instead of a significant contributor. They could be leaders not laggards by making Canada a clean energy powerhouse that creates good jobs for workers and helps Canada win in the trillion-dollar clean economy.

Instead, Suncor and fronts like the Pathways Alliance remind us why talk is cheap. Canadians aren’t fools. They can see through the spin. But time is running out. Absolute emissions from oil and gas are rising. Real action – and a hard cap on oil and gas emissions – is needed now.

Activists call for legislation to exit from oil and gas amid record-breaking heat, extreme weather

This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Sta ron September 16, 2023.

From Europe to Africa to Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of climate activists launched protests Friday to call for an end to the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels as the globe suffers dramatic weather extremes and record-breaking heat, with plans to continue through the weekend.

The protests — driven by several mostly youth-led, local and global climate groups and organizations, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement — were taking place in dozens of countries and hundreds of cities worldwide.

Several thousand people marched in Vienna, holding up signs demanding higher taxes for carbon emissions and an end to meat consumption. Members of the student climate awareness group Last Generation sat down in front of Parliament, and speakers called on government to quit oil and gas and pass laws to save the climate.

“We need national climate protection laws because Austria has a great responsibility, we have a historical responsibility for our emissions,” Global 2000 campaigner Anna Leitner said. “And at the same time Austria and Europe are the seat of international companies which don’t care about laws elsewhere in the world and pollute the environment and climate. That’s exactly why we need a supply chain law and we demand climate protection on all levels.”

“It’s one year since Russia started the war against Ukraine,” World Wildlife Fund spokeperson Thomas Zehetner said. “It’s still legal in Austria to install gas heating . … We demand that a law needs to be passed as quickly as possibly which regulates the exit from oil and gas.”

Some 250 protests were held in Germany, including thousands of people who gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and marched in a long procession through the city’s government district. One person carried a sign that read “March now or swim later.” Another sign read: “There is no planet B.”

In Quezon City, Philippines, activists lay in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and held signs demanding fossil fuels — from coal to natural gas — be phased out.

Outside the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources office in Jakarta, Indonesia, protesters held signs calling for end to dirty fuels and greenwashing as police officers looked on.

In Jammu, India, protesters played dead in a protest against deforestation.

In Sweden, climate activists gathered in front of Parliament next to the Royal Palace where King Carl XVI Gustaf was celebrating his 50th anniversary on the throne. Their chants about “climate justice” could be heard in the palace courtyard as the king watched the changing of the guard during the golden jubilee celebrations.

And in Congo, dozens joined a protest march through the city of Goma, shouting slogans and waving banners and placards calling for an end to corporate control of fossil fuels. The Congolese government caused an uproar among environmentalists last year by putting 30 oil and gas blocks up for auction, including 13 blocks criss-crossing through protected areas and national parks.

The Congo Basin forest absorbs 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide — about 4 per cent of global emissions — some of which would be released into the atmosphere if the areas are cleared for oil and gas drilling.

A week before the planned protest, the United Nations warned that countries are way off track to curb warming to 1.5 C since preindustrial times, as agreed in Paris in 2015. The world has warmed at least 1.1 C since then.

Over the past few months, Earth broke its daily average heat record several times according to one metric, July was the hottest month ever on record, and the Northern Hemisphere summer was declared the hottest on record. Dozens of extreme weather events are believed to have been made worse by human-caused climate change.

Another major strike is planned to take place Sunday in New York, to coincide with the city’s Climate Week and the UN climate summit.

Report outlines top risks for province’s food crops, ecosystems, stormwater management

This article was written by Kristin Rushowy and was published in the Toronto Star on September 14, 2023.

Floods and drought are currently among the biggest climate change concerns in Ontario, threatening food crops, aquatic ecosystems and stormwater management, says a new report prepared for the provincial government.

The first Ontario Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment, recently released online by the government, looked at the “risks and opportunities that stem from a changing climate,” and found that “overall, extreme heat, extreme precipitation and seasonal temperature-related impacts are the drivers of highest risks across Ontario.”

However, it adds, “wildfire, drought conditions and seasonal precipitation were also found to be particularly impactful for future time periods” in some areas of the province.

In a statement to the Star, a spokesperson for Environment Minister David Piccini said “the report concludes that Ontario has a robust capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and we will continue to make historic investments in critical infrastructure across our province.”

Spokesperson Daniel Strauss also said “Ontario has already begun the process of building climate resiliency through programs such as Ontario’s Forest Sector Strategy, Community Wildfire Protection plans, Climate Risk and Resilience Assessments, and the Wetlands Conservation Partnership, which has already provided over $30 million in funding since 2020 to help protect and restore wetlands across the Great Lake Watershed.”

The province commissioned the assessment three years ago, with

The assessment was done by the non-profit Climate Risk Institute, which consulted with more than 140 experts and Indigenous groups

the work done by the nonprofit Climate Risk Institute, which consulted with more than 140 experts and Indigenous groups. The government received the report in January, but only released it last month.

New Democrat MPP Sandy Shaw, her party’s environment critic, said “the assessment makes clear what Ontarians already know — the climate crisis is here and it’s frightening. We need a government that takes real action to mitigate the impacts, protect people, and prevent further damage, instead of this deliberate neglect.”

This article was written by the Canadian Press and was published in the Toronto Star on September 14, 2023.

A large majority of Canadians are worried about climate change and believe it is the reason for an increase in extreme weather, a new national poll suggests. But the Leger poll says only a small fraction of people listed climate change as the top issue facing Canada today, and many say they’re only likely to change their behaviour if that doesn’t come with a cost.

The polling firm asked more than 1,500 people about their views on climate change in an online survey conducted between Sept. 8 and 10. The poll, which is weighted to account for demographic differences, can’t be assigned a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples.

It comes at the end of Canada’s worst wildfire season in history.

Against that backdrop, 72 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they are worried or very worried about climate change and 21 per cent said they were not very worried. Only seven per cent said they weren’t worried about it at all. Respondents from Quebec were most likely to be worried or very worried, at 84 per cent, while Albertans were the least likely to be worried, at 55 per cent.

Younger Canadians are more concerned about the climate than older Canadians, and women are more worried than men.

The largest share — 33 per cent — said inflation is the top issue, 16 per cent chose housing, and eight per cent pointed to interest rates.

This opinion was written by Imran Bayoumi and Konrad Yakabushki, and was published in the Globe & Mail on September 14, 2023.

From deadly flooding in Nova Scotia to wildfires across Canada, the summer of 2023 was dominated by climate change-induced disasters, many of which have overwhelmed provincial or territorial authorities and local first responders. Increasingly, a large part of the federal government’s response to these crises has been to deploy the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) via Operation Lentus, the standing military operation first set up in 2010 to respond to natural disasters across Canada. The military has often been treated as the default option when responding to natural disasters.

But this is not tenable, and Operation Lentus is increasingly threatening to pose a strain on the CAF’s capabilities. In 2020, General Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff, warned that if responding to natural disasters becomes a more frequent task for the CAF, it will start to affect the readiness of the Armed Forces. That’s even more of a problem now, since Canada’s NATO allies have faced a heightened threat from Russia in Europe in the intervening years, while Canada’s interests in a peaceful Indo-Pacific region have been increasingly challenged by China’s efforts to undermine stability there.

What’s more, the average number of deployments under Operation Lentus has steadily increased, from twice a year when the operation first started to an average of seven times a year between 2018 and 2022 – numbers that do not even account for CAF deployments to long-term care homes and northern and remote communities, nor its work managing and distributing personal protective equipment, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Total statistics for 2023 are not yet available, but so far the CAF has responded to disasters in Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and the Northwest Territories.

The consequences of climate change will continue to affect Canada. The federal government needs to shift the burden from the CAF by creating a new agency like U.S.’s Federal Emergency Response Agency (FEMA), to coordinate and respond to future disasters across the country.

The good news is that the Trudeau government has already stated that it is exploring options for a federal national disaster response agency. In setting this up, Ottawa should be sure that any effort to respond to disasters is not duplicated, and that a primary focus of the agency should be working with the provinces and territories to pool resources including first responders and funding. The federal government can look to the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism, established in 2001, for insights and best practices for managing Canada’s federated system of governance, as the EU brings together the resources of many sovereign states. Creating a new agency would also allow the government to more efficiently channel resources into preventative actions, allowing for a proactive approach to building resilience to climate – something Operation Lentus does not allow for.

Similarly, a disaster response agency can provide a dedicated post disaster focus, ensuring residents and communities have the funding and resources needed to rebuild. A natural home for this agency would be under Public Safety Canada, which could subsume many of the disaster response tasks undertaken and administered by the agency, such as the Federal Disaster Assistance Initiative, while shifting the burden from the CAF.

It might seem easier and more attractive to just increase the funding afforded to the CAF, potentially even earmarking it for Operation Lentus, rather than commit to the serious work involved in creating an entirely new agency. But this approach has serious shortcomings. First, the CAF is facing a staffing shortage of about 16,000 members, driven in part by a lack of competitive pay and reports of a toxic work culture. Relying on CAF members to stretch beyond their core purview and respond to climate-induced disasters would only increase resourcing strain and further compound the staffing challenges facing the CAF; providing additional funding for disaster response without solving these structural challenges will not be a sufficient fix.

While CAF’s focus should be on deterring threats and working with Canada’s allies and partners for a secure world and a secure Canada, climate change is a threat that knows no boundaries. The CAF should continue to lead the charge in delivering Canada’s humanitarian and relief aid internationally, but here at home, the CAF’s logistical skills should be relied on to co-ordinate aid in the initial parts of a disaster, and Operation Lentus should operate explicitly as an option of last resort. A new agency that would allow us to make these changes will improve our response to the increasing number of disasters in Canada, and produce a more ready CAF.

This article was written by Laura Stone and was published in the Globe & Mail on September 14, 2023.

The assessment was delivered to government in January and quietly posted online in August

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is being accused of burying a worrying report about the effects of climate change, which outlines in stark detail the risks of extreme weather events on all aspects of life, from food production to the economy.

The report, called the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment, predicts extreme heat and precipitation and other factors such as wildfires and droughts will have the biggest repercussions on climate in the future. It says Ontario has the institutional and financial capacity to do more to fight climate change, but it has “not yet been mobilized widely despite the imperative.”

“Ontario has already been affected by climate change as evidenced by recent events such as flooding, heat waves, and unusually high climate variability or extremes. The impacts of climate change have the potential to affect built and natural systems through water shortages, forest fires, power outages, outbreaks of diseases, and more,” the report said.

“These changes in climate translate into risks to economic sectors, ecosystems, communities, and people.”

The report was commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in 2020 and delivered to the government in January by a project team led by the Climate Risk Institute, a non-profit academically affiliated organization. However, the report, which clocks in at 505 pages, was only posted online in late August, without a media advisory or public announcement. Environment Minister David Piccini told a legislative committee in May that the government was still reviewing the report, which he described as “substantial.”

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns, the party’s critic for energy and climate action, said Mr. Ford’s government “completely buried” the report for eight months as it continued with its plan to carve out sections of the protected Greenbelt land that arcs around the Greater Toronto Area for housing development.

“The report is damning, and the government’s lack of response is even more so,” Mr. Tabuns told reporters on Wednesday.

“It’s clear that Ford’s Conservatives have no serious climate adaptation strategy. Instead, they’re actively pursuing policies that will put us at even greater risk.”

Daniel Strauss, a spokesperson for Mr. Piccini, defended the government’s environmental record and said the province has a “robust capacity” to adapt to the impact of climate change.

“Ontario will continue to work with all our partners, including Indigenous communities, municipalities and businesses, to best incorporate the report’s findings and identify further ways to prepare Ontario for the effects of climate change,” Mr. Strauss said in a statement.

Even the study’s co-author, Al Douglas, said he was unaware the report had been released until recently. The study provides a “very comprehensive assessment” of the risk levels of climate change, he said, including extreme weather events such as the wildfires that burned in a number of provinces this summer while residual smoke wafted into Ontario.

“There isn’t a part of the province that is immune to these challenges,” Mr. Douglas, president of the Sudbury, Ont.-based Climate Risk Institute, said in an interview.

“What was surprising to me is that there is almost very strong consensus about the current levels of risk. We are experiencing this stuff right now. … So it’s worrisome to think that this is going to continue to build over the next 20 to 30 years.”

Although he said he was surprised the government didn’t publicize the release of the report, he is pleased it is now receiving public attention. He said he hopes similar assessments can be completed every three to five years.

The report predicts the number of extreme hot days, where air temperatures exceed 30, are “expected to rise significantly across Ontario,” particularly in Southwest, Central and Eastern Ontario, to an average of 60 days a year by the 2080s.

It also says that climate change is expected to increase risks across the agriculture sector by directly affecting field crop, fruit, vegetable and livestock production, and could result in disruptions and food shortages in the province.

While the report doesn’t propose concrete solutions, it says that a formal provincial adaptation plan “would co-ordinate action among various levels of implementation, prioritize investment in high-risk areas and enable an understanding of changing climate risks.”

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner also accused the government of trying to keep the report “from seeing the light of day.” He said it paints a “grim picture” of Ontario’s climate future and serves as a stark reminder that the province needs drastic climate action immediately.

“But Doug Ford is headed in the opposite direction, ramping up costly fossil gas plants, gutting conservation authorities and paving over our farmlands, wetlands and the Greenbelt,” he said in a statement.

Researchers had projected higher-intensity blazes — just not this soon

This article was written by Brenna Owen and Darryl Dyck, and was published in the Toronto Star on September 11, 2023.

The onset of large, severe wildfires that threaten communities year after year has occurred earlier in British Columbia than previous research projected, and experts say the record-shattering 2023 season must serve as a springboard for action.

The surge stems from a combination of climate change and entrenched forest management practices, which have together created a landscape more conducive to large, high-intensity blazes, says Lori Daniels, a professor in the department of forest and conservation sciences at the University of B.C.

“Society is already paying a huge cost for these climate change-fuelled fires,” she says. “The thing we can control in the short term is the vulnerability of the landscape.”

Reducing that vulnerability means transforming how B.C.’s diverse landscape is managed. Shifting away from a timber-focused approach that prioritizes conifers over less-flammable broadleaf trees and ramping up prescribed burning are key steps toward protecting communities by supporting healthy, resilient forests, she says.

“The sooner we do it, the better,” she adds.

Daniels is the co-author of a paper published by the peer-reviewed journal Nature that examined data from the past century and found an “abrupt” uptick in wildfire activity in B.C. corresponding with a warming and drying trend that began in the mid-2000s.

The province has experienced its four most severe wildfire seasons on record during the past seven years, in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023.

This season has smashed records for area burned in B.C. and Canada, with wildfires scorching more than 165,000 square kilometres across the country.

The paper published last week notes wildfires scorched more than 10,000 square kilometres of land in B.C. during three of the past seven seasons. Between 1919 and 2016, just three years saw more than 5,000 square kilometres.

The surge in intense wildfires is not surprising given climate projections for the province over the coming decades, says Marc-André Parisien, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service based in Edmonton who led the study.

However, both researchers say it came sooner than expected.

“According to a lot of projections, in 20, 30 years is where you would have seen a real amplification of these fire regimes, but (it happened) around the turn of the millennium, so a fair bit earlier,” Parisien said.

Daniels says she previously thought the next generation of fire ecologists, not hers, would have to contend with the “new reality” of high-intensity wildfires.

“To have four of these seasons out of the last seven is shocking,” she says.

The researchers say climate change is not the only culprit, though. The warming and drying trend that began in the mid-2000s coincided with pine beetle outbreaks that left swaths of B.C.’s forests dead, dry, brittle and ripe for wildfire.

The outbreaks also prompted the B.C. government to approve extensive clear-cut harvesting to salvage the economic value of the beetlekilled timber.

After logging, Daniels says the predominant approach in B.C. is to replant coniferous trees intended to feed the forest industry.