B.C. faces a future of disappearing salmon runs, more wildfires and dying forests with a temperature increase of two or three degrees and it is time to adapt to a new reality, a panel of experts told a packed audience at the University of Victoria’s Ideafest.
The weird weather of 2015 broke records, but it is a harbinger of the future, said Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium climate scientist Trevor Murdock, adding that models showing a two degree temperature rise are probably optimistic.
By the end of this century, if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, there could be a temperature increase of six degrees Celsius, Murdock warned.
“With zero net greenhouse gas emissions and with some pulled out of the atmosphere — so pretty much what was agreed to in Paris — we are still looking at about two degrees of warming,” Murdock said.
“For the 21st century it looks as if 2015 is our way to the new future.”