Canada’s Climate Crisis: Climate change had a particularly severe impact on Canada, where average temperatures have increased by more than twice the global average and by an even more dramatic amount in the Arctic area. Compared to 70 years ago, the data indicates that there have been more extreme hot days and fewer extreme cold days in recent decades.
The volume of rain may be increasing. In addition to warming permafrost and melting ice caps in the Canadian Arctic, scientists have shown that the mean sea temperature and wave height in Canada’s oceans have increased. Countries committed to taking action in 2016 to keep rises in the average global temperature to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
Reducing the dangers and effects of climate change is the aim of this target. The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which includes actions to lessen greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change in this nation, was put into effect by Canada by this commitment.
Canada has been a part of global climate change collective action for over 30 years.
Since the late 1980s, climate change has been the subject of scientific investigation on a global scale. To evaluate climate change and give governments scientific data to improve climate policy, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was founded in 1988.
The most recent advancements in climate research, adaptation, vulnerability, and mitigation are summarized by scientists and other experts from Canada and throughout the world through this panel. The panel’s major conclusions over several decades have more clearly described the kinds and extent of climate change, attributing a large portion of it to human activity.
The Sustainable Development Goals and greenhouse gas emissions
Together with 192 other nations, Canada pledged to support the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. To eradicate poverty, safeguard the environment, and enhance prosperity, peace, and collaboration, this agenda is a global call to action that prioritizes aiding the most vulnerable first and leaving no one behind. Numerous social, economic, and environmental concerns, including poverty, health, gender equality, sustainable economic growth, water, and climate change, are addressed under the agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Over the previous 30 years, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.
The Canadian government has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, among other domestic and international climate change initiatives, since 1990. A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy and the 2016 Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change were the two most recent domestic plans.
Canada has made some strides in separating emissions from GDP and population growth, with both the economy and population growing more quickly than emissions. But after the Paris Agreement was signed, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up, making it the Group of 7G7 country with the worst performance since the 2015 Conference of the Parties in Paris, France.
What the COVID-19 pandemic may teach Canada
Strong, coordinated government response can prevent a disaster from getting worse, as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated. However, the longer-term climate change crisis is more pressing than ever.
Lockdowns and curfews, mask laws, vaccination rollouts, assistance for workers and small businesses impacted by economic shutdowns, and the acquisition of ventilators and personal protective equipment were some of the ways governments in Canada and around the world responded to COVID-19. Like pandemics, climate change is a worldwide emergency that specialists have warned for many years. Both pandemics and climate change pose threats to the economy and public health, and both necessitate comprehensive societal solutions to avert greater disaster.