B.C. Climate News March 21 to March 27: Protests held across Canada Friday | Birds are laying eggs earlier as climate change shifts springs | Tech star donates $14.5 million to save B.C. parkland – Vancouver Sun

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Here’s your weekly update with what you need to know about global climate change and the steps B.C. is taking to address the climate and ecological crises for the week of March 21 to March 27, 2022.

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This week in climate news:

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned for years that wildfires, drought, severe weather, such as B.C.’s deadly heat dome in June, and flooding would become more frequent and more intense because of the climate crisis.

Last August, it issued a “code red” for humanity and last month the panel, made up of hundreds of scientists from around the world, said the window to stop global warming from exceeding 1.5 C was closing.

Check back here every Saturday for a roundup of the latest climate and environmental stories. You can also get up to date B.C.-focussed news delivered to your inbox by 7 a.m. by subscribing to our newsletter here.

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A glance at B.C.’s carbon numbers:

• B.C.’s gross greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2019 (latest available data:) 68.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e.) This is an increase of 3.0 MtCO2e, or 5 per cent since 2007, the baseline year.
• B.C.’s net emissions in 2019: 67.2 MtCO2e, an increase of 1.5 MtCO2e, or two per cent, since 2007.
• B.C.’s 2030 target: 40 per cent reduction in net emissions below 2007 levels.
• B.C.’s 2040 target: 60 per cent reduction.
• B.C.’s 2050 target: 80 per cent reduction.
• Canada’s 2030 emissions target: Between 40 and 45 per cent reduction.
• Canada’s 2050 emissions target: Net-zero.

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Climate change quick facts:

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Permanent flood repairs coming to Coquihalla Highway this summer

Permanent flood repair work on the Coquihalla Highway is expected to begin this summer and will be wrapped up by year end.

The B.C. government said Thursday that it had issued a request for proposals from pre-vetted contractors before selecting one to conduct the repair work later this year. Officials say the contract will be awarded by late April or early May.

“Our crews worked hard to get the Coquihalla reopened after the severe flooding event and were able to do so in short order about a month after the storm,” said Transport Minister Rob Fleming in a statement. “The pace of reconstruction to get the Coquihalla back open to traffic was impressive and beyond anything we could have imagined.”

Read the full story here.

—Stephanie Ip

Protests held around Canada to call for more climate action

Protesters gathered in cities across Canada on Friday to denounce government inaction on fighting climate change as part of a series of worldwide environmental protests.

The events were part of the Fridays for Future movement that is inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

In Montreal, activists unfurled a red-and-yellow banner reading, “Land Back,” across the statue at the base of Mount Royal ahead of what was billed as a “teach-in” on decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty.

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In Vancouver, a youth-led coalition rallied downtown to call on The Royal Bank of Canada to stop funding fossil fuel projects.

The groups included members from Climate Justice UBC, Stop TMX, Sustainabiliteens, 350Vancouver, Stand.earth, Leadnow, Climate Emergency Unit, Wilderness Committee, Climate Convergence, and the David Suzuki Foundation, Dogwood BC, and SFU350.

About 150 people gathered at Vancouver Art Gallery in the late afternoon for speeches and a march to RBC offices downtown.

The protesters are upset that some banks continue to finance and insure the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, Trans Mountain Pipeline, and Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline on traditional Wet’suwet’en and Tk‘emlúpsemc lands.

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“Today, hundreds of groups across the world took to the streets; united in our fight for a better world free from fossil fuels. As RBC’s AGM approaches, we need to hold big banks responsible for funding the climate crisis,” said Naisha Khan, an organizer with Climate Justice UBC and Banking on a Better Future, in a statement.

—The Canadian Press and Tiffany Crawford

Birds are laying eggs earlier as climate change shifts springs

The early bird is getting even earlier.

With climate change spurring earlier springs across much of North America, many birds are laying their eggs earlier in the year, according to a new study – adding to mounting evidence that global warming is turning wildlife habits upside down.

Of 72 bird species examined around Chicago, roughly a third lay their eggs about 25 days earlier than they did a century ago, researchers report in the paper published on Friday in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

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Fleming said work to be conducted would also fortify the route against climate change and other major weather events in future. The work will be focused on three areas including the Bottletop Bridges about 50 kilometres south of Merritt, Juliet Bridges located three kilometres south of Bottletop and the Jessica Bridges about 48 km south of Juliet.

Read the full story here.

—Reuters

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Environmental group gives guarded support for company’s B.C. old-growth forest plan

An environmental organization is offering cautious support for an announcement by the largest private landowner in British Columbia that will defer logging in 400 square kilometres of old-growth forest for the next 25 years.

Mosaic Forest Management, which oversees the private lands of logging companies TimberWest and Island Timberlands, announced the deferral last week along with intentions to finance the plan through a carbon credit program that is expected to raise several hundred million dollars by 2047.

A statement from the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance says exempting old-growth and older second-growth stands from logging will protect the unique trees that support everything from the climate and endangered species to wild salmon, clean water and tourism.

Ken Wu, executive director of the alliance, says long-term deferrals will buy time to arrange further protection and Mosaic should be commended for its “important step” if the measure “pans out.”

Read the full story here.

—The Canadian Press

Vancouver native and tech star donates $14.5 million to save B.C. parkland from development

At $14.5 million, Dax Dasilva’s gift is almost four times bigger than the previous record received by the B.C. Parks Foundation.

Dasilva, a Vancouver native who is a Montreal-based tech star and environmental/social activist, was in Vancouver on Tuesday for the announcement, although a float-plane flight planned for over the Pitt River Watershed was a no-go because of limited visibility due to bad weather.

The founder of ecommerce company Lightspeed — he stepped down last month as CEO to focus on environmental projects through an environmental alliance he formed five months ago called Age of Union — Dasilva cut his activist teeth protesting the logging of old-growth forests in Clayoquot Sound as a teen.

The $14.5 million he donated to the foundation is part of a $40 million pledge for environmental work around the planet; in B.C. the initial focus is the Pitt River Watershed, where Dasilva footed the bill to buy-up land earmarked for development, and the French Creek Estuary on Vancouver Island (again, saving it from development).

Read the full story here.

—Gordon McIntyre

Climate-driven water woes spark Colorado rush to conserve ‘liquid gold’

In a rooftop greenhouse near downtown Denver, cash crops are thriving on hydroponic life support. Arugula. Chard. Escarole. Cabbage.

“And basil,” said Altius Farms CEO Sally Herbert, plucking a bright leaf. “Which you really should taste. Because it’s magnificent.”

The vertical farm is one of many Colorado models for coping with increasing water scarcity in the western United States, as climate change makes droughts more frequent and more severe.

Other projects have Coloradans testing water recycling and building barriers against the wildfire runoff that can taint supplies.

Colorado is hardly alone. A major U.N. climate report published recently notes that half the world’s population is already seeing severe water scarcity for at least some part of the year. In the U.S. West, drought and earlier runoff from an increasingly diminished snowpack will increase water scarcity during the summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said.

Read the full story here.

—Reuters

Ocean warming threatens more frequent bleaching of Great Barrier Reef -report

Waters off Australia face more frequent and severe marine heatwaves that threaten the Great Barrier Reef, a report said on Monday, as a United Nations team began a visit to evaluate whether the World Heritage site should be listed as “in danger.”

The reef is at risk of another mass bleaching, following three in the past six years, as sea surface temperatures off the northeast coast of Australia have soared to as much as 2-4 degrees Celsius above average, Australian environmental group Climate Council said in the report.

The government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority last Friday said most of the marine park off the coast of Queensland state had been hit by “significant heat stress” over the summer, which in the Southern Hemisphere falls between the months of December and February.

The marine heatwaves are affecting fisheries, damaging species and hurting tourism.

“It’s getting grim and it’s getting to the point where we can’t even simulate the combination of conditions that the reef is experiencing in a controlled laboratory setting to discern this,” said marine biologist Jodie Rummer at James Cook University in Queensland.

If climate change continues unabated, the reef could face bleaching events annually after 2044, the Climate Council said.

Read the full story here.

—Reuters
 

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GUIDES AND LINKS

B.C. Flood: Read all our coverage on the Fraser Valley and beyond

Frequently asked questions about climate change: NASA

Climate change made B.C. heat wave 150 times more likely, study concludes

B.C.’s heat wave: Intense weather event is linked to climate crisis, say scientists

Expert: climate change expected to bring longer wildfire seasons and more area burned

Vancouver outlines its Climate Emergency Action Plan

COVID-19 may have halted massive protests, but youth are taking their fight for the future to the courts

Climate displacement a growing concern in B.C. as extreme weather forces residents out of their homes

ticrawford@postmedia.com