Canada says heat waves linked to climate change; France prepares for major warming scenario
by AFP Staff Writers
Ottawa (AFP) Oct 25, 2024

Canada's environment ministry said Friday that climate change had made nearly all the heat waves recorded this summer more likely, including in an Arctic area where temperatures hit 35 degrees Celcius.

Earlier this year, Environment and Climate Change Canada debuted a new tool that examines the connection between human-caused climate change and extreme weather, by comparing current data with pre-industrial data.

The tool's first-ever application found that human activity had made a mid-June east coast heave wave two to 10 times more likely.

In its latest analysis, the ministry looked at the 37 hottest heat waves recorded this summer across the country.

Four of those 37 were made at least 10 times more likely by human activity. For 28 of the heat waves, the figures were two to 10 times more likely.

"Throughout the summer, we saw above normal temperatures shift across different regions of Canada," environment ministry researcher Nathan Gillet said.

"Over the past 77 years, summer temperatures have warmed by 1.7 degrees Celsius, nationally, on average, and the principal cause of this warming is human-induced climate change," he told reporters.

One area of the Arctic, the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut, experienced a heat wave that lasted 25 days over September and October.

Further west, in the Arctic town of Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, temperatures hit 35 degrees this summer.

"This is really exceptional in that region," Gillet said.

The ministry said Canada is warming at roughly double the global average rate, and the rate of warming in the Arctic is three times higher than the global average.

"These 'once in 100 years' climate-related weather events are becoming more frequent, severe, and costly," the ministry said.

This winter, the environment ministry expects to use its new tool to assess the correlation between human-caused climate change and extreme cold snaps.

France prepares for dramatic climate warming scenario: PM
Paris (AFP) Oct 25, 2024 - Temperatures in mainland France are on track to increase by four degrees Celsius by 2100 due to global warming, the government warned Friday, urging coping strategies for a much hotter country.

A report presented by Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Friday said that uncertainties surrounding the longevity of greenhouse gases made estimates beyond 2050 hazardous.

The publication came nearly a decade after Paris hosted the landmark 2015 Climate Change Conference, which adopted a legally binding treaty to limit global warming.

But based on scientific evidence, the 2015 targets of keeping the increase as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels will already be overshot in the early 2030s, the PNACC national climate change adaptation report said.

"Respecting the Paris accord remains the target," the report said. "But in the face of the risk of overshooting those targets it is necessary to prepare for global warming of four percent in 2100."

The world as a whole is on track for a median temperature increase of 3.2 Celsius by the end of the century, it said.

But mainland France, "which is heating up faster than other parts of the world", is projected to see an average temperature rise of two degrees in 2030, 2.7 degrees by 2050 and four degrees by 2100 on the basis of current commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"This figure may seem abstract, but the consequences of this warming curve for our society are extremely concrete," the report said.

This scenario gives the government "a robust warming trajectory" on which to base its policies, it said.

Average temperatures will rise, heatwaves will become longer and more intense, there will be extreme flooding and extreme droughts and sea levels will rise.

Water management issues and soil erosion are among major expected challenges, it said.

If nothing is done, France's gross domestic product (GDP) risks dropping by 10 points by 2100. The agriculture sector would lose one billion euros ($1.1 billion) every year by 2050, and 500,000 homes would come under threat because of a receding coastline by the end of the century, the report said.

The government's plan contains 51 measures to protect the population, insure against risk, adapt human activity, protect natural and cultural spaces, and mobilise public services.

The plan will be updated regularly, it said.

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