The IPCC Working Group II report on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, released at the end of March, warns that the world is unprepared for many of the impacts of climate change, including flooding from increased precipitation and rising sea levels; wildfires and water shortages due to extreme droughts; increasingly powerful storm surges; and increased outbreaks of vector-borne diseases as a result of ecological disruptions.
The federal government has not formally commented on the IPCC’s latest findings, but Paul Kovacs, one of the lead authors of Working Group II’s North American chapter, told The Hill Times that the government, as an IPCC member state, knows what’s in the report.
“The part that’s completely clear to all of us involved, is that the government of Canada is very aware, they know what’s in this report, they’re knowledgeable of what the science is saying, and they’ve had their staff comment along the way about what is being discovered. Awareness is there,” said Prof. Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University and an IPCC volunteer since 1996.
IPCC Working Group III’s report on climate change mitigation, released on April 12, found that greenhouse gas emissions grew at a faster rate between 2000 and 2010 than compared to the past three decades. Worldwide emissions grew by 2.2 per cent annually over the last decade, compared to an average annual growth rate of 1.3 per cent between 1970 and 2000. Fossil fuels accounted for 78 per cent of total emissions increases over the last 40 years.
“Without additional efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond those in place today, emissions growth is expected to persist driven by growth in global population and economic activities,” the report states. “Baseline scenarios, those without additional mitigation, result in global mean surface temperature increases in 2100 from 3.7 to 4.8°C compared to pre-industrial levels.”
Erik Haites, a lead author on the Working Group III’s chapter on climate-related investment and financing, said that the public and policymakers don’t understand that today’s carbon emissions will persist in the earth’s atmosphere for the next century.
“Once emissions are in the atmosphere, they’re there for 100 years or more. Making substantial changes take a long time,” said Mr. Haites, a Toronto-based policy consultant specializing in environmental economics and carbon pricing. “That characteristic of climate change isn’t well understood, I don’t think, by the public and probably not by politicians.”
Mr. Haites said that politicians, in Canada and internationally, are delaying taking serious action on climate change mitigation because tough policies don’t have an immediate payoff and will take decades to have an impact on climate change.
“Politicians can use it to their advantage in the sense that delaying things essentially has no perceptible consequences for them,” he observed. “There are no immediate benefits of taking action and no immediate consequences of not taking action.”
Both Mr. Haites and Prof. Kovacs were in Ottawa last week to participate in the Canadian Climate Forum’s Symposium on Extreme Weather.
Gordon McBean, a renowned climatologist and former Environment Canada assistant deputy minister, organized the event and reiterated that politics is delaying policy when it comes climate change.
“A major issue for the politics of climate change is the perceived time scale of it being a future issue – which by definition is an issue beyond the next election. The reality is that climate change is now happening and resulting in among other things, more extreme events with impacts on Canadians, our socio-economy and our planet,” said Prof. McBean, who was a lead author on the IPCC’s 1990 and 1995 assessment reports, and a review editor on the IPCC’s 2007 assessment report.
Canada pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. Members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change pledged to limit the average global temperature increase to 2°C under the accord. However, Environment Canada’s latest report to the UNFCCC projects that nationwide emissions will continue to grow beyond 2020 with emissions from the fossil fuel industry accounting for an increasing share.
By 2020, Environment Canada projects that nationwide emissions will be 21 per cent above 2005 levels, with the oil and gas industry accounting for 27 per cent of annual emissions.
“By Environment Canada’s own accounting, we’re not going to meet our agreed to Copenhagen targets. Copenhagen not only has targets, but says that [climate change] is one of the greatest challenges the world must address. It says we need to dramatically reduce our emissions, but also have a strong adaptation process,” said Prof. McBean, who served as a Environment Canada scientist from 1970 to 1988 and an assistant deputy minister with the department from 1994 until 2000. “It’s right in the Copenhagen Accord, so where is the leadership on those two issues?”
In a statement emailed to The Hill Times, Environment Minister Aglukkaq said that the government is “committed” to environmental protection “while keeping the Canadian economy strong,” citing federal investments in adaptation and emissions regulations on vehicles and coal-fired electricity generation.
“In the first 21 years of our coal regulations, we expect a cumulative reduction in greenhouse gas emissions equal to removing 2.6 million vehicles from the road per year over this period,” the minister stated. “On the international front, Canada is taking action through a number of avenues, including by being a founding member and a major financial contributor to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. Through initiatives like these we are taking action to reduce short-lived climate pollutants and investing in clean energy projects. At home and abroad our government is making a difference.”
Canada continues to face criticism from environmental groups who say the government is “obstructing” progress towards an long-term international agreement to cut global emissions, and aggressively pushing for the development of the oil sands at the expense of its Copenhagen commitment.
Successive federal environment ministers have been delaying emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector since 2007. Last December, Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) announced that it would be “a couple of years” while the federal government attempts to negotiate regulations “in concert” with the United States.
Prof. Kovacs, who specializes in climate change adaptation, said that the government is a world leader on climate change adaptation research.
“The government of Canada has been doing work on [climate change] adaptation for 20 years now, that is further along than other countries around the world. It’s been trying to collect information on what can be done, and trying to share that information with other countries looking for tools for adaptation,” he said. “[C]ompared to other countries, we’re actually pretty far along on adaptation.”
But when it comes to cutting emissions and curbing rising global temperatures, Prof. Kovacs said there needs to be “a global effort.”
“To participate in a global discussion requires the national government. It’s the collective effort and how we influence others that really affects mitigation,” he said. “That’s hard, it’s the challenging part that the IPCC is giving some council and advice on what governments can do.”
The IPCC will release a synthesis report based on the latest findings of Working Groups I, II, and III at the end of October.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com/
Author: Chris Plecash
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