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Here’s the latest news concerning climate change and biodiversity loss in B.C. and around the world, from the steps leaders are taking to address the problems, to all the up-to-date science.
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In climate news this week:
• Scale up efforts to reduce wildfire risk or B.C. faces dire economic consequences: Study
• Famed conservationist Jane Goodall dies at age 91
• New report says 15 million deaths could be avoided if people switch to a predominantly plant-based diet
Human activities like burning fossil fuels and farming livestock are the main drivers 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, including researchers from B.C., has warned for decades that wildfires and severe weather, such as the province’s deadly heat dome and catastrophic flooding in 2021, would become more frequent and 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.
According to NASA climate scientists, human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50 per cent in less than 200 years, and “there is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate.”
As of Sept. 5, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 425.48 parts per million, down slightly from 427.87 ppm last month, according to NOAA data measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, a global atmosphere monitoring lab in Hawaii. The NOAA notes there has been a steady rise in CO2 from under 320 ppm in 1960.
Climate change quick facts:
• The Earth is now about 1.3 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
• 2024 was hottest year on record globally, beating the record in 2023.
• The global average temperature in 2023 reached 1.48 C higher than the pre-industrial average, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. In 2024, it breached the 1.5 C threshold at 1.55 C.
• The past 10 years (2015-2024) are the 10 warmest on record.
• 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 including sea level rise, and more intense drought, heat waves and wildfires.
• On the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, the temperature could increase by as much 3.6 C this century, according to the IPCC.
• In June 2025, global concentrations of carbon dioxide exceeded 430 parts per million, a record high.
• 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.
• There is global scientific consensus that the climate is warming and that humans are the cause.
• Scientific information taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.
(Sources: United Nations IPCC, World Meteorological Organization, UNEP, NASA, climatedata.ca)
Latest News
Scale up efforts to reduce wildfire risk or B.C. faces dire economic consequences: Study
If B.C. doesn’t turn to large-scale efforts to reduce the risks of wildfire, the full costs of those wildfires could have dire economic consequences, says a paper published in the journal Science.
Science is a leading scientific publication, produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with a readership of about 400,000.
The paper was written by wildfire ecologist Robert Gray, UBC adjunct professor Robin Gregory, and a former professor and senior counsel at the University of Victoria law centre, Calvin Sandborn.
They said the wildfire picture in B.C. in the past decade is stark.
More than 70,000 square kilometres, an area the size of the Republic of Ireland, have been burned. The cost to fight those fires is $4.8 billion, with the province setting aside a wildfire contingency of $2.8 billion in its 2023-24 budget.
But that is not the entire picture. Indirect costs — that include disaster recovery, property loss, environmental damages, and business and health costs — can push the total costs of wildfires 1.5 to 20 times higher.
—Gordon Hoekstra
Jane Goodall, famed chimpanzee researcher and conservationist, dies at 91
British primatologist Jane Goodall, who transformed the study of chimpanzees and became one of the world’s most prominent wildlife advocates, has died at the age of 91, her institute announced Wednesday.
Goodall “passed away due to natural causes” while in California on a speaking tour of the U.S., the Jane Goodall Institute said in a statement on social media.
“Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the statement added.
Her activism was sparked in the 1980s after attending a U.S. conference on chimpanzees, where she learned of the threats they faced: exploitation in medical research, hunting for bushmeat, and widespread habitat destruction.
From then, she became a relentless advocate for wildlife, traveling the globe well into her 90s.
“The time for words and false promises is past if we want to save the planet,” she told AFP in an interview last year ahead of a UN nature summit in Colombia. Her message was one of personal responsibility and empowerment: “Realize every day you make a difference.”
—AFP
Legal challenges claim B.C. natural gas pipeline hasn’t been ’substantially started’
Two legal challenges filed in B.C. claim a liquefied natural gas pipeline hasn’t been “substantially started,” contrary to a decision made by the provincial government back in June.
Petitions filed in B.C. Supreme Court last week allege the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission natural gas pipeline project has been given the green-light by the B.C. Environment Ministry to go ahead without requiring a new environmental assessment certificate, which was first granted in 2014.
One of the petitions was filed by hereditary Chief Charles Wright with the Gitxsan Nation, who claims the decision to allow the pipeline project to proceed through its “untouched” territory was made without proper consultation.
The ministry announced in June that pipeline project has been “substantially started,” meaning the environmental assessment certificate approving its construction issued in 2014 remains valid.
The 900 kilometre pipeline is to supply the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas facility off the B.C. coast was given an environmental certificate from the B.C. government two weeks ago and federal approval quickly followed under a one-project, one-review system.
—The Canadian Press
B.C.’s EV mandates are ‘tough targets’ as sales slow down
Uncertainty follows recent changes to the federal climate policy as the B.C. government continues to double down on provincial carbon-emission targets.
A lack of electric vehicles, inadequate infrastructure and the colder Northern climate will leave hundreds of light- and heavy-duty vehicles used by governments burning fossil fuels past current target dates.
Last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Ottawa would pause its 2026 electric-vehicle sales mandate for at least a year, adding his government is focused on “results, not objectives.”
The scrapping of the consumer carbon tax in March and the announcement on the EV mandate are a major policy shift from the Trudeau government’s 2021 law that set transparency and accountability measures to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
B.C. adopted a more aggressive strategy, placing restrictions on the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles. The first target mandates 26 per cent of all new light-duty vehicles sold in B.C. must be zero-emission vehicles, or ZEVs, by 2026. That climbs to 90 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035.
— BW Homer
A recipe for avoiding 15 million deaths a year and climate disaster is fixing food, scientists say
About 15 million deaths could be avoided each year and agricultural emissions could drop by 15 per cent if people worldwide shift to healthier, predominantly plant-based diets, according to the EAT-Lancet Commission, which brought together scientists worldwide to review the latest data on food’s role in human health, climate change, biodiversity and people’s working and living conditions.
Their conclusion: Without substantial changes to the food system, the worst effects of climate change will be unavoidable, even if humans successfully switch to cleaner energy.
“If we do not transition away from the unsustainable food path we’re on today, we will fail on the climate agenda. We will fail on the biodiversity agenda. We will fail on food security. We’ll fail on so many pathways,” said study co-author Johan Rockström, who leads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The commission’s first report in 2019 was regarded as a “really monumental landmark study” for its willingness to take food system reform seriously while factoring in human and environmental health, said Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement.
The first EAT-Lancet report proposed a “planetary health diet” centred on grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes. The update maintains that to improve their health while also reducing global warming, it’s a good idea for people to eat one serving each of animal protein and dairy per day while limiting red meat to about once a week. This particularly applies to people in developed nations who disproportionately contribute to climate change and have more choices about the foods they eat.
—The Associated Press
Pope Leo condemns climate change critics: BBC report
Pope Leo XIV is speaking out against critics of climate change, citing the “increasingly evident” impact of rising temperatures, according to a BBC report.
Reiterating the words of his predecessor Pope Francis, the new pontiff lambasted critics who ridicule those who speak of global warming, the report said.
The BBC reported that his remarks will be seen as a criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump, who last month called climate change a “con.”
Leo also called for greater action from citizens the world over on climate change, saying there was no room for indifference or resignation.
— BBC
Swiss glaciers shrank three per cent this year, the fourth-biggest retreat on record
Switzerland’s glaciers have faced “enormous” melting this year with a three per cent drop in total volume — the fourth-largest annual drop on record — due to the effects of global warming, top Swiss glaciologists reported Wednesday.
The shrinkage this year means that ice mass in Switzerland — home to the most glaciers in Europe — has declined by one-quarter over the last decade, the Swiss glacier monitoring group GLAMOS and the Swiss Academy of Sciences said in their report.
“Glacial melting in Switzerland was once again enormous in 2025,” the scientists said. “A winter with low snow depth combined with heat waves in June and August led to a loss of three per cent of the glacier volume.”
Switzerland is home to nearly 1,400 glaciers, the most of any country in Europe, and the ice mass and its gradual melting have implications for hydropower, tourism, farming and water resources in many European countries.
More than 1,000 small glaciers in Switzerland have already disappeared, the experts said.
The teams reported that a winter with little snow was followed by heat waves in June — the second-warmest June on record — which left the snow reserves depleted by early July. Ice masses began to melt earlier than ever, they said.
—The Associated Press