What the new IPCC report says climate change could — and is — costing Canadians
CBC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on Monday on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability humans face with rising temperatures.
It may be difficult to get through all the facts and figures on yet another tome — it's more than 3,500 pages. But this report, much different than its predecessors, focuses on the human toll of climate change and how we may adapt.
Or, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres called it: "an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership."
Among all the numbers, the report's message is clear: climate change is already taking its toll on humanity, at a grave cost. Some of that's hard put a dollar figure on, but the concrete costs are already mounting.
And it could be much worse, depending on the trajectory we take.
It's no big surprise following the tragic fires that ravaged B.C. last summer that the new report says wildfires are the top climate change risk facing Canada, causing a heavy financial strain. The 2016 wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta., caused $3 billion in insured damages alone. And in 2017, fire suppression cost the province $500 million.
What's worse is that the report suggests that places that only experience fire every 400 years will experience them as often as once every 50 years.
"We're kind of used to these events being sort of discrete events: there was a flood last year or there was a forest fire three years ago, kind of thing. Now the risk that's starting to emerge is that these events start to happen closer together, that they're more severe when they do occur," said Robert McLeman, environmental studies professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and coordinating lead author on the IPCC report's chapter on health, well-being and the changing structure of communities.
"It amplifies the risks to people's physical well-being, mental health and well-being. And it increases the risk of displacement."
The report further states that fires, combined with pests and other factors, could result in the loss of $459 billion in forestry by 2080, with the biggest losses in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.
It's also important to consider the financial cost of people being displaced by more frequent and intense wildfires.
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How quickly humans act to reduce emissions changes the forecast of how bad things will get.
Under a forecasted scenario with stringent emissions cuts, known as RCP2.6, the annual fire suppression cost could rise to $1 billion by the end of the century, which would be a 60 per cent increase relative to 1980–2009. In a worst-case scenario, called RCP8.5, that cost could rise to $1.9 billion, which would be a 119 per cent increase.