Here’s all the latest local and international news concerning climate change for the week of March 10 to 16, 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.
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In climate news this week:
• Study shows rain-soaking atmospheric rivers are getting bigger, wetter and more frequent
• Carney shuffles Guilbeault out of climate ministry
• B.C. government preps legislation to scrap carbon tax
• Brazil is building a highway in the rainforest to service a climate conference
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.”
As of March 5, 2025, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen to 427.09 parts per million, up from 426.65 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 over 421 ppm one year ago and less than 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 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 years 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 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.
• There is global scientific consensus that the climate is warming and that humans are the cause.
Latest News
Study shows rain-soaking atmospheric rivers are getting bigger, wetter and more frequent
As extreme weather events have hit the world hard in recent years, one meteorology term — atmospheric rivers — has made the leap from scientific circles to common language, particularly in places that have been hit by them.
That stands to reason.
The heavy rain and wind events most known for dousing California and other parts of the West have been getting bigger, wetter and more frequent in the past 45 years as the world warms, according to a comprehensive study of atmospheric rivers in the current issue of the Journal of Climate.
Atmospheric rivers are long and relatively narrow bands of water vapour. They take water from oceans and flow through the sky dumping rain in prodigious amounts. They have increased in the area they soak by six to nine per cent since 1980, increased in frequency by two to six per cent and are slightly wetter than before, the study said.
Scientists have long predicted that as climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas makes the air warmer, it holds more moisture, which means bigger, nastier atmospheric rivers are coming in the future. This week’s study shows that a more moist future is already here.
“This doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily all because of climate change. We didn’t study that, but it does line up, broadly speaking, with some expectations of how (atmospheric rivers) will change in a warming atmosphere,” study lead author Lexi Henny, an atmospheric scientist at the University of North Carolina who did her research while at NASA.
What’s happened already “is still small relative to the changes that we think are going to happen” in a future warmer world, Henny said.
—The Associated Press
Carney shuffles Guilbeault out of climate ministry
Mark Carney is officially Canada’s 24th prime minister.
About an hour after Justin Trudeau officially resigned on Friday, Carney’s first cabinet was sworn in alongside him at a ceremony at Rideau Hall.
The new Liberal government has 24 ministers — 13 men and 11 women, including Carney — and no deputy prime minister. It maintains Trudeau’s core team that has been dealing with the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, but drops 18 members of the former prime minister’s cabinet.
Steven Guilbeault, previously the minister of Environment and Climate Change has been moved to Canadian Culture and Identity, Parks Canada Minister and Quebec Lieutenant.
He has been environment minister since 2021.
—National Post
Carney cuts carbon tax rate to zero
With the swipe of a sharpie, Prime Minister Mark Carney reduced the price of the consumer carbon tax rate to zero, meaning Canadians will no longer be paying it on fuels. In doing so, he also neutralized one of the Liberals’ most unpopular policies before a widely expected election call.
Carney invited cameras into the cabinet room on Parliament Hill Friday afternoon to watch him sign a document zeroing out the tax rate.
The gesture marked a stark departure from how Canadian leaders have typically done business in the past and was reminiscent of a scene Canadians are most used to seeing south of the border, as U.S. President Donald Trump routinely invites media into the Oval Office to watch him sign executive orders.
But sitting around a boardroom is the kind of setting Carney is used to, given his private sector business experience and time spent as a central bank governor in both Canada and England. So as cabinet ministers looked on, Carney delivered some brief statements before opening a red folder placed in front of him.
“We have already taken a big decision as this cabinet because this is a cabinet that’s focused on action, it’s focused on getting more money in the pockets of Canadians, it’s focused on building this economy,” he said as he sat at the cabinet table.
—Stephanie Taylor
B.C. government preps legislation to scrap carbon tax
B.C. Premier David Eby said his government is preparing legislation to scrap the province’s consumer carbon tax after Prime Minister Mark Carney reduced the federal version of the tax to zero on Friday as his first act in office.
“We have been preparing for and we will introduce legislation to eliminate the carbon tax in British Columbia and will work with the federal government on the timing of their measures,” Eby told reporters after a town hall at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus, just before Carney’s announcement on Friday.
“That work is well underway and we will be ending the carbon tax here in British Columbia.”
The B.C. legislature doesn’t sit until March 31, a day before the carbon tax was scheduled to increase by $15 per tonne to $95 a tonne.
Eby said he does not plan to call the house back early, but is preparing legislation to repeal the tax. He also said British Columbians won’t be on the hook for the scheduled increase on April 1.
The carbon tax, aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, has become unpopular politically in recent months.
—Cheryl Chan
B.C. is fast-tracking 18 major projects to combat U.S. tariffs, including clean energy
The B.C. government has trumpeted plans to fast-track 18 major projects as a way to support local jobs and investment and combat U.S. tariffs.
But will these projects, which have a combined price of $20 billion, be built any faster? Not necessarily, according to a Postmedia News analysis.
The three “energy-security” projects on the list already have environmental approvals and one, the $4 billion Cedar LNG project in Kitimat in northwest B.C., is already under construction. While there are permits that could be approved faster, the heavy-lifting that takes place during an environmental review is complete.
Of the four “critical mineral” projects, three are in the B.C. environmental assessment phase, and two also need approval from the Tahltan Nation, a process that has legislated timelines. Another, the Mount Milligan copper and gold mine in north-central B.C., hasn’t submitted a project for assessment.
The 11 wind and solar projects, and the $3 billion North Coast Transmission Line project, have been exempted from the regular environmental assessment process and instead will be reviewed through a “one-window” process overseen by the B.C. Energy Regulator, formerly known as the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission.
—Gordon Hoekstra
Brazil is building a highway in the rainforest to service a climate conference
The next instalment in a series of United Nations climate change conferences will be COP30, taking place in Bélem, Brazil, in November. The city of 1.3 million people, known as the gateway to the Amazon River, is building a new central square that includes a metal walkway with a lookout, kiosks, rain gardens, a picnic area, an event space, a pet space, a playground and an outdoor gym.
Also planned are improvements to the city’s rainwater drainage system and sewage network, a cycle path and a clean energy system.
But one item that has raised eyebrows is the construction of a new four-lane highway that will cut through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest.
The BBC reports that the aim of the project is to ease traffic to the city. COP events (the acronym stands for Conference of the Parties) routinely draw more than 50,000 attendees, including world leaders and activists.
The government for the local region said last November that the Avenida Liberdade, as the highway will be known, will be 13.3 kilometres long and “will have two lanes of traffic in each direction and shoulders, as well as exclusive lanes for cyclists, ecological paving on the cycle path, and solar-powered lighting.”
—Chris Knight
B.C. Hydro cuts Tesla from charger rebate program in tariff fight
B.C. Hydro has pulled the plug on rebates for Tesla electric vehicle chargers as part of the provincial government’s response to U.S. tariffs.
The Crown utility said in a statement that it was giving preference in its rebate program to Canadian goods, while excluding, “where practicable, U.S.-produced goods.
As of Wednesday, Tesla products, including EV chargers, energy storage batteries and inverters, aren’t eligible for Clean B.C. and B.C. Hydro rebates. However, if you bought or got pre-approval for a Tesla before March 12, it can still qualify.
The rebate program covers up to 50 per cent of the purchase and installation costs for a home charger, up to a maximum of $350.
—Joseph Ruttle
What it will take for rich countries to reach net zero: You
If you live in the U.K., your dishwasher and fridge’s carbon footprint has shrunk by a lot, largely because the government and companies have spent billions of pounds to install wind and solar power. Over the past 35 years, that switch has helped cut emissions from electricity generation by 80 per cent.
Pollution from your car and your boiler has fallen too — but not by nearly as much, unless you have also ditched your fossil-fuel burning technology in favour of cleaner alternatives. Overall, emissions from homes and cars dropped by a third and a sixth since 1990, respectively.
That needs to change, the government’s official climate advisers said in their carbon projections last month. If the U.K. is to meet its goals of an 87 per cent emissions cut by 2040 and net zero by 2050, consumers must play a bigger role.
Many rich economies such as the U.K. have made big strides in cleaning up their power supply, but their populations still live high-carbon lifestyles. Unlike less wealthy peers still working toward a coal-free grid, this cluster of mostly European nations now faces a new challenge: persuading the public to live differently.
“The remaining cuts we need to make to domestic emissions involve sectors, and choices, and changes in technologies, and to some extent in lifestyles, that have a real impact and bearing on our lives day to day,” says Toby Park, a behavioural science expert who has advised the U.K. government on reducing consumer emissions.
—Bloomberg News
Trump cuts target world-leading greenhouse gas observatory in Hawaii
The office is one of more than 20 rented by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that are proposed to have their leases ended under money-saving efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Elon Musk.
The online listing on the DOGE website mentions an NOAA office in Hilo, Hawaii and an estimate of how much would be saved by cancelling its lease — $150,692 a year.
The observatory, established in 1956 on the Northern flank of the Mauna Loa volcano, is recognized as the birthplace of global carbon dioxide monitoring and maintains the world’s longest record of measurements of atmospheric CO2.
—Reuters
Climate change, already causing problems on Earth, could soon create a mess for orbiting satellites
Climate change is already causing all sorts of problems on Earth, but soon it will be making a mess in orbit around the planet too, a new study finds.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated that as global warming caused by burning of coal, oil, gas continues, it may reduce the available space for satellites in low Earth orbit by anywhere from one-third to 82 per cent by the end of the century, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed. That’s because space will become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature’s way of cleaning it up.
Part of the greenhouse effect that warms the air near Earth’s surface also cools the upper parts of the atmosphere where space starts and satellites zip around in low orbit. The cooling also makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which reduces the drag on the millions of pieces of human-made debris and satellites.
That drag pulls space junk down to earth, burning up on the way. But a cooler and less dense upper atmosphere means less space cleaning itself. That means that space gets more crowded, according to a study in Monday’s journal Nature Sustainability.
—The Associated Press