DEGREES OF CHANGE: CLIMATE WARMING AND THE STAKES FOR CANADA // 021
In this report, we set out the problem, explaining how climate change could affect our country. The Degrees of Change diagram created for this report is a uniquely Canadian illustration to help visualize key implications for our country of a warming world in a range of areas, from ice, snow and sea to security and trade. We summarize a large body of evidence developed by the federal government, research organizations, and others on the way in which climate change is affecting and could affect Canada in this century and map our findings onto a global temperature scale. In doing so, we show how the effects of climate change could develop and intensify here at home, as the world warms. It represents our contribution to raising awareness and understanding of the many connections between our continued health and well-being and the changing climate.
Governments, businesses, and communities can use the information contained in Degrees of Change and contemplate strategic adaptation choices now that minimize the risks and take advantage of potential opportunities that a changing climate may present. Canadians can use the diagram to consider the implications of meeting or failing to meet a commitment reinforced in 2009 by 100 heads of state in Copenhagen of keeping global climate warming below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels.* Using Degrees of Change, we can begin to assess on a broad scale what kind of preparations we, as a society, may need to make to manage the effects of a warming world, while working to prevent undesirable climate futures that loom on the horizon.
Some conclusions are already apparent when it comes to managing the early effects of a changing climate:
1 // We can cost-effectively reduce, and in some cases avoid, adverse impacts of climate change on the health and safety of Canadians, the economy, and our environment. In planning our communities, growing our economy, designing and building our infrastructure, and managing natural resources we have tended to take the stability of the climate for granted. That is, we assumed past climate — both variability within historical ranges and averages — was a good guide to the future. But, as temperatures increase, as moisture patterns change, as other weather and climate conditions that we used to rely on for work, play, or economic gain become less reliable, we will be forced to react to these new and chang* The Copenhagen Accord includes an article (Article 12) that states that by 2015 governments will decide whether the 2°C target is good enough or whether the new target should be set at 1.5°C.