Here’s all the latest local and international news concerning climate change for the week of Jan. 13 to 19, 2025.
Here’s the latest news concerning climate change and biodiversity loss in British Columbia and around the world, from the steps leaders are taking to address the problems to all the up-to-date science.
In climate news this week:
• $8.5 billion disaster insurance loss record should be wake-up call, say experts
• Contaminated drinking water is a growing concern for cities facing wildfires
• Global temperatures this year to rival 2024’s record-breaking heat: climate officials
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, 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 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.”
Climate change quick facts:
• The Earth is now about 1.3 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
• 2024 was hottest on record globally, beating the last 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.
• 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 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 humans are the cause.
Latest News
Global temperatures this year to rival 2024’s record-breaking heat: climate officials
This year’s average global temperature is expected to rival 2024’s record-breaking heat, Canadian officials said Wednesday, underlining humanity’s narrowing window to hit an international target intended to help avert some of climate change’s most serious effects.
“If you look at the scientific literature, the window is closing very rapidly,” said Bill Merryfield, a climate scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
It’s expected to be 1.45 C warmer this year than it was in the late 19th century — and it’s virtually certain to be hotter than any year before 2023, the federal scientists said.
The forecast comes just days after 2024 was declared the warmest calendar year on record. The World Meteorological Organization said it beat out the previous record, in 2023, and surpassed the benchmark of 1.5 C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures for the first time.
Countries have agreed to try to keep the increase in temperature below the 1.5 C mark and well below 2 C over the long term in a bid to prevent some serious effects of human-caused climate change, driven by planet-warming fossil-fuel emissions.
The threshold is measured in decades, not a single year. So, while the threshold is not broken because of last year’s record, Merryfield warned: “We’re almost there.”
—The Canadian Press
$8.5 billion disaster insurance loss record should be wake-up call, say experts
Experts, industry observers and local politicians hope the record-shattering $8.5 billion in weather-related insurance losses in Canada in 2024 will be the wake-up call needed to get government and individuals to make climate resilience a priority.
That needs to be a priority that is backed by more money, they say.
“We are not doing anything fast enough here. We are just toying around the edges, kicking the can down the road. And we don’t seem to learn a darn thing,” said Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction and an adjunct professor of disaster and emergency management at York University in Toronto.
The weather-related severe events in 2024 included a hailstorm in Calgary, floods in Eastern Canada, and an atmospheric river that hammered the B.C. southwest coast for several days in October.
The heavy rain, carried across the Pacific Ocean from tropical storms, caused a series of floods, debris flows and mudslides that hit communities in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island. Four people were killed during the heavy rainfall, including a woman whose house was swept away by a debris flow in Coquitlam.
McGillivray said the trend is going to get worse as climate change is forecast to bring more frequent and severe weather events.
—Gordon Hoekstra
Ottawa provides $117M for drought resilience on Sunshine Coast
The federal government is providing $117 million to help solve what it describes as the “heightening water crisis” due to drought on the Sunshine Coast, where the Sechelt area has been hit especially hard.
A statement from the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities says the project will involve upgrading the existing water treatment plant and constructing two large storage reservoirs for the Chapman Creek watershed.
It’s the source of municipal water for about 76 per cent of Sunshine Coast residents.
The statement from the federal government says the new reservoirs will provide a more reliable and sustainable supply during periods of drought.
The funding comes after the Sunshine Coast Regional District declared a state of local emergency and ordered water-use restrictions in fall 2022, when a prolonged summer drought quickly transitioned into freezing conditions.
The region had just a trace of rain between July and mid-October that year.
—The Canadian Press
You may have to pay to spray as Vancouver considering water metering for all homes, buildings
Vancouver council will consider installing water meters on all existing homes and eventually moving toward a pay-what-you-use model to promote conservation.
ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung will introduce a motion at next week’s council meeting to explore the costs and benefits of introducing water meters to existing buildings citywide.
Water meters are required on new buildings in Vancouver, but Kirby-Yung said she is “focusing here on what’s unmetered — which is really around the typical, legacy, single-family users.”
The motion would direct staff to report back later this year on options and timelines for installing meters to measure water use on all existing single detached houses and duplexes, condo and apartment buildings, and commercial properties.
—Dan Fumano
Contaminated drinking water is a growing concern for cities facing wildfires
As fires continue to burn across Los Angeles, several utilities have declared their drinking water unsafe until extensive testing can prove otherwise.
A warmer, drier climate means wildfires are getting worse, and encroaching on cities — with devastating impact. Toxic chemicals from those burns can get into damaged drinking water systems, and even filtering or boiling won’t help, experts say.
Last week, Pasadena Water and Power issued a “Do Not Drink” notice to about a third of its customers for the first time since it began distributing water more than a century ago. With at least one burned pump, several damaged storage tanks, and burned homes, they knew there was a chance toxic chemicals had entered their pipes.
When large fires burn in towns and cities, rather than forests and grasslands, infrastructure can be heavily damaged. When drinking water systems are damaged in a fire, “we can have ash, smoke, soot, other debris and gases get sucked into the water piping network,” said Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University engineering professor who researches water contamination in communities hit by fire.
Those elements can be particularly toxic because chemically engineered synthetics in building materials and households are heating, burning and releasing particles and gases, he said. Some of those chemicals are harmful even at low concentrations, experts say.
—The Associated Press
Los Angeles fires have scorched largest urban area in California in at least 40 years
Two wildfires still burning in Los Angeles have torched more urban area than any other fire in the state since at least the mid-1980s, an Associated Press analysis shows.
The Eaton and Palisades fires that erupted last week have collectively burned almost 4 square miles of highly dense parts of Los Angeles, more than double the urban acreage consumed by the region’s Woolsey Fire in 2018, according to the AP’s analysis of data from the Silvis Lab at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Experts say several factors could lead to wildfires reaching cities more often. Urban areas continue to sprawl into wild land. Climate change is raising global temperatures that lead to more severe weather, including droughts, especially in the western United States.
“If these conditions get worse or more frequent in the future, it wouldn’t be surprising, in my opinion, if there were more events that threaten densely populated places,” said Franz Schug, a researcher studying the boundaries between the wild land and urban areas at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Eaton and Palisades fires’ rampage through Los Angeles has killed at least 27 people, destroyed more than 12,000 structures and put more than 80,000 under evacuation orders. The fires are likely to be among the most destructive in California history, according to the state agency CalFire.
—The Associated Press
L.A. wildfires the costliest in American history? Here’s what experts are saying
The wildfires that erupted this week across Los Angeles County are still raging, but already are projected to be among the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
The devastating blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, laying waste to entire neighbourhoods once home to multimillion-dollar properties.
While it’s still too early for an accurate tally of the financial toll, the losses so far likely make the wildfires the costliest ever in the U.S., according to various estimates.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between $135 billion and $150 billion. By comparison, AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic losses caused by Hurricane Helene, which tore across six southeastern states last fall, at $225 billion to $250 billion.
—The Associated Press
Eagle count shows encouraging increase in Squamish area
A count in the Squamish River Valley has tallied the highest number of eagles since 2007, a hopeful sign for the local population.
A group of 64 volunteers counted 1,288 eagles during the Brackendale Winter Eagle Count on Jan. 5.
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“This was probably the best weather we’ve ever had for a count,” said Christopher Di Corrado, one of the count organizers with the Squamish Environment Society.
The warm weather and low water levels made it easier to access areas that are usually blocked by snow, helping teams cover more ground.
“This was our biggest count in the last four years,” Di Corrado said. “The coho salmon run was really strong, so the eagles had plenty of food. That’s always a good sign for the health of the ecosystem.”
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While the numbers didn’t quite match the 39-year average of 1,319, they show a steady climb compared with recent years — 996 in 2024, 916 in 2023, and 799 in 2022.
—Bhagyashree Chatterjee
Orca still pushing body of her dead calf near Vancouver Island, 10 days after death
A mother killer whale whose calf died more than two weeks ago has recently been spotted still carrying the newborn’s carcass in waters off Victoria.
The Center for Whale Research says in a Facebook post on Thursday that the mother, known as J35 or Tahlequah, was seen pushing the remains on Jan. 10 between Vancouver Island and San Juan Island in Washington state.
The centre says observers “were not seeing much of the carcass” and it appeared as if the mother was trying to keep the body from sinking.
The calf was reported to have died around New Year’s Eve and the mother was seen pushing the remains, just as she had done in 2018 when she carried a calf’s body for 17 days.
Researchers have said the behaviour is an apparent act of grief, and that J35 has now lost two of her four documented calves.
—The Canadian Press