Against the backdrop of a heat bump that resulted in over 800 heat-related deaths (Weichel, 2021), boiled marine life on the beaches (Migdal, 2021), and contributed to forest fires that resulted in lost lives, lost homes, and evacuations, BC fracking operations were found to be emitting up to twice the amount of methane estimated by the Federal Government (Tyner and Johnson, 2021). This is the paradox that we live in, and the only viable response is to aim for the best and prepare for the worst.

The earth depends on a unique system where the gases making up about 1% of the atmosphere are responsible for the delicate balance of retaining enough heat on earth to sustain life and expelling heat that would make the planet uninhabitable (Emanuel, 2020). Scientists have known for over a century that increasing gases such as carbon dioxide and methane disrupt the balance, causing too much heat to be trapped and changing the climate. (Emanuel, 2020). However, dominant societies worldwide are built on GHG intensive economic systems, so early scientific evidence was dismissed. The scientific community, in response, doubled down to prove that climate change is real and project what the future holds in a time of climate uncertainty.

To provide evidence that current climate change is not part of a regular cycle, scientists reach back 800,000 years and use proxies such as isotope levels in ice cores to understand climate cycles before the onslaught of GHG emissions from industrial development (Masson-Delmotte, 2013, p388). Historical temperature data sets gathered by different groups worldwide over the past 200 years are compared and contrasted, revealing remarkably similar trends of increasing temperatures (Emanuel, 2020). Ninety-seven percent of scientists publishing peer-reviewed papers on climate agree that the trends of increased climate warming are extremely likely due to human activity releasing GHG emissions into the atmosphere (NASA, 2021).

With proof in hand, scientists are building scenarios to illustrate the state of the world when taking climate change into consideration. The most recent scenario planning methodology incorporates projected temperature changes described as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) with conditions that shape responses to climate change, known as Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP). The SSP methodology describes five reference pathways based on drivers such as population, economic growth, education, and urbanization (Hausfather, 2018). Integrated assessment models (IAMs) identify different energy use and emissions within the SSPs (Hausfather, 2018). The SSPs are combined with the RCPs to create integrated scenarios that indicate confidence in staying within specific temperature changes in the lead up to 2100. (O’Neill, 2014). This approach shows that climate policy is not developed in a vacuum and depends on favourable socio-economic conditions to enable ambitious mitigation and adaptation strategies. 

Increased climate ambition is needed soon because we are getting dangerously close to pushing the earth’s systems beyond the ability to support human life safely. Steffen et al. (2015) describes how Planetary Boundaries (PB) such as climate change, measured in parts per million of GHG, biosphere integrity, also known as species extinction, and ocean acidification, can serve as “early warnings” that the earth’s systems are in jeopardy. The PBs are set before the global threshold, providing time for humans to slow or stop the change. The current measure of carbon in the atmosphere is 409ppm (Lindsay, 2020) and approaching the boundary of 450ppm, while species loss is dangerously high (Steffen et al., 2015).

The wealth of scientific data and modeling, of which just a fraction is described in this blog, makes a case for climate action. That is one reason all countries signed the Paris Agreement. According to the International Energy Agency, 44 countries accounting for almost 70% of global emissions have committed to having net zero emissions by 2050. (IEA, 2021). While this offers a hint of hope, it is unclear if countries will let go of fossil fuels and scale up renewables in time. Nevertheless, we must aim for the best and continue to work towards the 1.5°C, net-zero goal.

However, when it comes to adaptation, we must plan for the worst. Climate change is already here. According to Canada’s Changing Climate Report (Bush et al., 2019), the average annual temperature in Canada has already warmed by 1.7°C, with some regions, such as the North and northern BC, experiencing higher temperatures. Even if the world reaches net-zero emissions by 2050, emissions pathways indicate warming ranging from 1.8°C (RCP2.6) to 6.3°C (RCP 8.5) compared to the reference period 1989-2005. This makes extreme heatwaves hotter and more frequent which, in turn, leads to increased drought and chances of wildfires. Rainfall will increase, and periods of high rainfall will shift as snowpack decreases and snowfall shifts to rain. Flooding in urban areas is expected to increase. (Bush et al., 2019). With global emissions continuing to rise (Lindsay, 2020), there is no clear indication we are on an RCP 2.6 pathway and we must plan for RCP 8.5.

Taking the future climate scenarios into account is “necessary and possible” (Murdock and Tyler, 2019). Scientists have developed and continue to refine analyses and scenarios that make this possible. Now the baton is passed to all levels of government – municipal, Indigenous, Provincial, and Federal – as they help Canadians adapt to the changing climate. From urban planning to withstand heat and floods to land use planning that provides food and mental health support to address climate anxiety, adapting to climate change affects society as a whole. Adaptation is real, we are living in it, and we need to be prepared for the worst.

Untangling ourselves from the paradox is more than ensuring we can fight forest fires and stop emitting methane – it means accepting the science and using it to redesign society for resilience in the face of dramatic climate change while we decarbonize as fast as possible. 

References

Bush, E., Gillett, N., Bonsal, B., Cohen, S., Derksen, C., Flato, G., Greenan, B., Shepherd, M., (2019), Canada’s Changing Climate Report, Environment Canada and Climate Change, https://changingclimate.ca/CCCR2019/chapter/executive-summary/

Emanuel, Kerry A. (May 15, 2020).  Climate Science, Risk & Solutions. Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, https://climateprimer.mit.edu/climate-science-risk-solutions-1220.pdf

Hausfather, Z., (April 19, 2018), Explainer: How ‘Shared Socioeconomic Pathways’ explore future climate change, Carbon Brief, https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-shared-socioeconomic-pathways-explore-future-climate-change

Migdal, A., (July 4, 2021), More than a billion seashore animals may have cooked to death in B.C. heat wave, says UBC researcher, CBC.ca, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/intertidal-animals-ubc-research-1.6090774

Lindsey, R. (August 14, 2020), Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Climate.gov, https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide

Masson-Delmotte, V., M. Schulz, A. Abe-Ouchi, J. Beer, A. Ganopolski, J.F. González Rouco,

E. Jansen, K. Lambeck, J. Luterbacher, T. Naish, T. Osborn, B. Otto-Bliesner, T. Quinn, R. Ramesh, M. Rojas, X. Shao and A. Timmermann, (2013), Information from Paleoclimate Archives. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

Murdock, T., Tyler, K., (March 20, 2019), Climate Change Concepts: Using Future Climate Projections, BC Agricultural and Climate Change Educational Series, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0lsLAitB5s

NASA, (2021), Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate Is Warming, NASA Global Climate Change, https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

O’Neill, B.C., Kriegler, E., Riahi, Ebi, K.L., Hallegatte, S., Carter, T.R., mathur, R., & van Vuuren, D.P.,  (2014), A new scenario framework for climate change research: the concept of shared socioeconomic pathways. Climatic Change 122, 387–400. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0905-2

Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E., Biggs, R., Carpenter, S., deVries, W., de Wit, C., Folke, C., Gerten, D., Heinke, J., Mace, G., Persson, L., Ramanathan, V.,  Reyers, B., Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet,  Science, VOL 347 ISSUE 6223. DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855

Tyner, D., Johnson, M., (July, 2021) Where the Methane Is—Insights from Novel Airborne LiDAR Measurements Combined with Ground Survey Data, Environmental Science & Technology,  DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c01572

Weichel, A., (July 16, 2021), Number of deaths recorded during B.C.’s heat wave up to 808, coroners say, CTV News, https://bc.ctvnews.ca/number-of-deaths-recorded-during-b-c-s-heat-wave-up-to-808-coroners-say-1.5512723