B.C. Climate News: Government announces changes to help stratas install EV chargers | Report says climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB - Vancouver Sun
Weekly roundup of climate change news to April 9, 2023 | Vancouver Sun
Here's your weekly roundup of climate change news for the week of April 3 to April 9, 2023.
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This week, the B.C. government brought in some new changes to help make it easier for stratas to pass bylaws to install more EV chargers as more drivers switch to electric to avoid using fossil fuels, and a new study out of the University of Washington found 159 people died during the June 2021 heat dome. Despite suffering the same 40 C and higher temperatures, there were far fewer deaths than in B.C., where more than 600 people died from heat-related illness.
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B.C. Climate News: Government announces changes to help stratas install EV chargers | Report says climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB Back to video
Here’s all the latest news concerning the climate change crisis, biodiversity loss, and the steps leaders are taking to address these issues.
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In climate news this week:
• Report says climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB
• New study says June 2021 heat dome caused 159 deaths in Washington State
• RBC chief executive defends climate plan as shareholders criticize record
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned for more than a decade that wildfires, drought, severe weather, such as B.C.’s deadly heat dome and catastrophic flooding in 2021, would become more frequent and more intense because of the climate crisis.
The panel has issued a “code red” for humanity and last year it said the window to stop global warming from exceeding 1.5 C was closing. In April 2022, it released a report with solutions for how to drive down greenhouse gas emissions, mainly by transitioning away from fossil fuels.
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There is a scientific consensus on climate change (NASA reports that 97 per cent of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming and that human activity is the cause.) Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that greenhouse gas emissions are the primary cause of global warming.
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.
Climate change quick facts:
- The Earth is now about 1.1 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
- Globally, 2022 was the fifth warmest year on record.
- Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by nearly 49 per cent above pre-industrial levels starting in 1850.
- The world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target to keep global temperature from exceeding 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change.
- On the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, the temperature could increase by as much as 4.4 C by the end of the century.
- In April, 2022 greenhouse gas concentrations reached record new highs and show no sign of slowing.
- Emissions must drop 7.6 per cent per year from 2020 to 2030 to keep temperatures from exceeding 1.5 C and 2.7 per cent per year to stay below 2 C.
- 97% of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming and that human beings are the cause.
(Source: United Nations IPCC, World Meteorological Organization, UNEP, Nasa, climatedata.ca)
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LATEST CLIMATE NEWS
Changes to make it easier for B.C. stratas to install EV chargers
The province introduced legislation Thursday to make it easier for strata corporations — and owners — to install charging stations for their electric vehicles in multi-unit condominiums.
The most significant proposed amendment to the Strata Property Act calls for lowering the voting threshold from 75 to 50 per cent approval for expenditures and changes to common and personal property that are needed to install EV charging stations. The change will make it easier for strata councils to pass bylaws and rules around the introduction of charging stations on the property.
Another amendment will require a strata corporation to approve an owner’s request to install an EV charging station — at the owner’s expense — when reasonable criteria are met.
“These amendments are a practical solution that reduce barriers for communities and owners converting to electric vehicles in stratas,” said Tony Gioventu, executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association of B.C.
Read the full story here.
—Pedro Arrais, The Victoria Times Colonist
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Washington state’s 2021 heat wave led to 159 deaths over three weeks: study
A new study from the University of Washington has found 159 people died during the June 2021 heat dome from related injury across Washington state.
In B.C., the official death toll was nearly three times as high — with 619 heat-related deaths during that same heat wave.
The B.C. Coroners Service blamed a delayed emergency response and a lag between alerts for the heat-related deaths. There was also a disproportionate number of fatalities in poorer neighbourhoods such as Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where SROs lack air conditioning units and proper ventilation.
In Washington state, when record temperatures struck the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2021, official estimates of 100 deaths included only people killed directly by heat exposure, according to a new study, published this week in the American Journal of Public Health, and led by Joan Casey, a professor in the University of Washington’s department of environmental and occupational health sciences.
Casey said that with climate change heat waves of this magnitude will become much more common. For example, the report notes with 2 C of warming above pre-industrial levels, similar heat waves would occur every five to 10 years, with even higher temperatures (1.3 C hotter) than endured during the heat dome.
Read the full story here.
—Tiffany Crawford
Judge rules against B.C. logging company’s request to probe environmentalists’ social media info
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has rejected a logging company’s request for a court order allowing them to probe into the social media of members of a Kootenay environmental group.
Madam Justice Lindsay Lyster released her decision in favour of Last Stand West Kootenay last week, saying granting the request by Cooper Creek Cedar would “not be in the interests of justice” and would suppress legitimate, peaceful protest.
The company had sought a so-called Norwich order requiring a third-party, such as a social media company, to provide information.
She said that granting such as order for information about Last Stand would “would have a chilling effect” on the group and others “engaging in expressive and associational activities in support of their political and social aims,” Lyster wrote in her March 27 judgment.
Cooper Creek Cedar had applied for the order in September, saying the online activities of Last Stand West Kootenay supporters had done it financial harm. It has faced protests by Last Stand West Kootenay for its activities in an area called the Argenta Face, at the north end of Kootenay Lake.
Read the full story here.
—John Boivin
New report finds climate change will make hurricanes stronger in U.S.
A new study published Friday in the journal Science Advances by the the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has found that climate change will likely make hurricanes stronger and more frequent in the U.S.
The study found the frequency of hurricanes could rise by a third, and that the cause is linked to the climate crisis caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
RBC chief executive defends climate plan as shareholders criticize record
RBC chief executive Dave McKay defended the bank’s climate plan at its annual shareholder meeting Wednesday as numerous attendees criticized it for not doing enough.
Speaking at the event held this year in Saskatoon, McKay emphasized the importance of an orderly net-zero transition since instability in food, energy or security will throw off efforts to rein in climate change.
“Where any of those, one or more of those elements, aren’t present, then the focus on this critical climate journey is put aside.” He also said there needs to be a wider shouldering of the burden of change.
“We are putting all the pressure in society on the manufacturing supply side to change and make it an easy journey for us as citizens, and so far, for the most part, we’ve appeared unwilling to change our consumption behaviours or mobility behaviours to lower our footprint.”
His comments come as the bank faces a barrage of criticism from those pushing for shareholder resolutions, especially on stronger and faster climate action but also racial equity, and executive pay, and Indigenous rights.
Read the full story here.
—The Canadian Press
Climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB, study says
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The Associated Press reports that climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters, sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences.
Hotter, thinner air that allows balls to fly farther contributed a tiny bit to a surge in home runs since 2010, according to a statistical analysis by Dartmouth College scientists published in Friday’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
They analyzed 100,000 major league games and more than 200,000 balls put into play in the last few years along with weather conditions, stadiums and other factors.
When air heats up, molecules move faster and away from each other, making the air less dense. Baseballs launched off a bat go farther through thinner air because there’s less resistance to slow the ball.
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Just a little bit farther can mean the difference between a homer and a flyout, said Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physicist who wasn’t part of the Dartmouth study.
—The Associated Press
Norwegian seafloor holds clue to Antarctic melting: report
The BBC reports that Antarctica’s melting ice sheet could retreat much faster than previously thought, citing new research.
The evidence comes from markings on the seafloor off Norway that record the pull-back of a melting European ice sheet thousands of years ago. Today, the fastest withdrawing glaciers in Antarctica are seen to retreat by up to 30 metres a day, BBC reports.
But if they sped up, the extra melt water would have big implications for sea-level rises around the globe.
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The report says losses from Antarctica caused by climate change have already pushed up the surface of the world’s oceans by nearly 1 centimetre since the 1990s. The researchers found that with the Norwegian sheet, the maximum retreat was more than 600 metres a day.
“This is something we could see if we continue with the upper estimates for temperature rise,” Dr. Christine Batchelor from Newcastle University, UK, told the BBC.
Read the full report here.
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A glance at B.C.’s carbon numbers:
- B.C.’s gross greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020 (latest available data) were 64.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e). This is a decrease of 0.9 MtCO2e (one per cent) from 65.5 MtCO2e in 2007, the baseline year for emissions reduction targets.
- B.C.’s net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020 were 63.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e.) This is a net decrease of 2.0 MtCO2e, or three per cent, since 2007.
- 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.
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
Do you have a story idea about local efforts being made to address the climate and ecological emergencies? Please email tips to ticrawford@postmedia.com.
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