The future of the climate crisis: Rising temperatures, food insecurity, and urban maladaptation

There is no Planet B. The IPCC’s latest report doesn’t just list out the repercussions of climate change; it also provides a few possible solutions for people and cities to implement. CREDIT: UNSPLASH

ANCHITAA GHAG

On February 28, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) published a 3,675 page report called Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

This report is the second installment of three contributions that will make up the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The AR6 is a summary of scientific studies explaining how humans influence climate change, how climate change impacts ecosystems, and how climate change can be mitigated in the future.

The goal of the IPCC is to evaluate the science behind climate change by publishing assessment reports written by top scientists and experts from around the world in approximately seven-year cycles.

The first installment of the AR6, published last August, covered the scientific basis for ongoing climate change. The most recent report is a compilation of updated research since the last IPCC assessment report in 2014. It was authored by 270 experts from 67 countries worldwide.

Here are three key sections of interest to us here in Guelph.

According to the report, the health of all Canadians will be impacted by more frequent and severe heat waves in upcoming years.

Just last year, the 2021 Western North America heat dome caused 595 deaths in British Columbia, reported CTV News Vancouver. The Royal Meteorological Society defines a heat dome as a mass of high air pressure that stays in one area over a prolonged duration. During this time, any hot air that rises from the ground becomes trapped in that area with nowhere to move, for days or weeks at a time.

The effects in Guelph were not as severe last year. However, Guelph saw a new daily high temperature record one year earlier, in 2020. According to CTV News Kitchener, this new record of 30.8 C broke the previous 2012 record of 29.2 C.

Prolonged drought conditions, which can be caused by heat waves, also have a direct impact on mental health, states the report. Severe weather events are stressful because they can have permanent or irreversible impacts. For example, floods or hurricanes

can destroy people’s homes and upend their sense of stability.

The report also highlighted that food production will be limited by unpredictable and extreme weather events.

Several regions of Ontario are expected to experience water scarcity during the summer growing season due to droughts. Guelph has previously been identified as an area that could, without appropriate conservation measures, expect water shortages in the future, reports the Guelph Mercury.

Fortunately, the report outlines a solution to this issue. While agricultural productivity in North America has been steadily declining since 1961 due to climate change, the report suggests that reducing carbon emissions as soon as possible can ensure the mitigation of further environmental risks to food security.

Moreover, severe natural disasters affect the infrastructure of Canadian cities.

The report states that the 2013 Calgary flood led to $1.8 billion in insurance losses. For the 80 per cent of Canadians who live in a city, these types of infrastructural damages can be detrimental in the long term.

The IPCC website’s fact sheets propose some guidelines for the sustainable development of cities, including increasing green spaces such as street trees, green rooftops, parks, community gardens, and ponds. These can have a cooling effect while also supplementing physical infrastructure such as the building of sea walls or adapting building regulations.

Maintaining natural systems during the construction of sustainable cities is paramount to proper adaptation. Since its last assessment, the IPCC noted that maladaptation has been found in many instances.

Maladaptation is the shortterm adaptation to climate

change-caused events that have negative long-term effects on systems. Altogether, these kinds of approaches affect the overall resilience of a system or community in a detrimental way.

One example the report provides is when sea walls are built to protect a city from flooding, but also cause degradation of surrounding coral reefs. Over time, more families can move to these coastlines under the assumption that it is safe, but they face the risk of the sea wall being over-topped. This maladaptive response can create an inflexible system that will become more expensive and difficult to resolve in the future.

Proper adaptation involves flexible, long-term planning and implementation, says the IPCC. In a different report it outlines an adaptive approach to protect against flooding through the use of hard physical barriers (e.g. sea walls) and nature based solutions (e.g. restoration of coral reefs or wetlands).

Climate change is certainly one of the most pressing issues worldwide, and action must be taken to mitigate damaging effects and protect the most vulnerable communities.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it best when he ended his video message at the press conference launch of the report with, “I know people everywhere are anxious and angry. I am, too. Now is the time to turn rage into action. Every fraction of a degree matters. Every voice can make a difference. And every second counts.”

The last of the three reports that make up the AR6 is scheduled to be evaluated by the IPCC up until April 1, 2022, after which it will be officially released to the public.