CBCNEWS — The Nature of Things
20260920 080000 UTC
453 transcript segments
Original Broadcaster Captioning (Enhanced)
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (https://www.gdeltproject.org/), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive.
Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:00:29] Hey, I'm Johanna Wagstaff, a meteorologist and part of the
[00:00:31] CBC News team covering stories on climate change. And we are
[00:00:34] starting to feel the impacts of those changes in our daily
[00:00:37] lives and see them in the world around us. In this episode,
[00:00:40] we'll help make sense of it all, both what's already happening
[00:00:44] and what could be coming in the future. Let's start by looking
[00:00:47] at the effects of rising temperatures.
[00:07:32] Just days before the Winter Olympics in Italy,
[00:07:34] organizers were quietly panicking because of this green
[00:07:37] slopes on the Dolomites, slopes that were supposed to
[00:07:40] host the best skiers and snowboarders. But then,
[00:07:43] right on cue, a series of storms moved
[00:07:45] through, blanketing the venues just in
[00:07:48] time. So officially, that crisis is over. But about
[00:07:51] two Empire State Buildings worth of snow are part of the
[00:07:54] backup plan. And this is how modern Winter Olympics operate
[00:07:58] now. Not will it snow, but will technology come
[00:08:00] through if it doesn't?
[00:08:02] Because Italy is not an outlier. In Beijing 2020, two,
[00:08:05] 100% of the snow was artificial. And of course,
[00:08:08] in Vancouver 2010, snow was trucked in from the
[00:08:10] interior for the local mountains. At the time,
[00:08:13] the lack of snow felt like bad luck,
[00:08:15] but in the end it was more of a preview for winters to come,
[00:08:19] thanks to climate change. So what does that mean for the
[00:08:22] future of Winter Olympics? For places that have built
[00:08:25] their identities around winter, the International Ski and
[00:08:28] Snowboard Federation has floated the idea of rotating
[00:08:32] the games
[00:08:33] between a small number of quote UN quote climate stable venues.
[00:08:36] New research suggests that by the 20 fifties,
[00:08:39] more than 70% of past and potential Olympic sites won't
[00:08:43] be climate reliable. So does Whistler qualify? Well, for now,
[00:08:47] yes, but it will mean some changes.
[00:08:49] Whistler Blackcomb is still seen as safer than many
[00:08:52] European resorts because of its elevation and sheer scale. But
[00:08:56] even here the cracks are showing. Some are skiing on the
[00:09:00] Horseman Glacier was suspended indefinitely
[00:09:03] in 2025, and by mid century climate
[00:09:05] models suggest that Whistler base could see about half of
[00:09:08] its winter precipitation fall as rain. Keeping Whistler
[00:09:12] Olympics ready would mean pushing finishing lines higher
[00:09:15] up the mountain and leaning heavily on snow making. And the
[00:09:19] village won't exactly feel like winter Wonderland with mainly
[00:09:22] rain forecast at 600 meters 25 years on,
[00:09:25] because snow making only works when temperatures are at or
[00:09:28] just slightly above 0 and that window is shrinking by the 20
[00:09:32] fifties. The winter is
[00:09:34] they currently think of as bad are expected to become average
[00:09:37] lower elevation hills will have to adapt to year round resorts.
[00:09:42] The true winter experience moves higher,
[00:09:44] colder and farther inland. So Whistler and a few others like
[00:09:48] Calgary, Salt Lake City, UT, and Sapporo, Japan,
[00:09:51] may indeed be one of the last few places where Winter
[00:09:55] Olympics still depend on winter, not just engineering.
[00:10:04] Recent summers have been so hot in Japan,
[00:10:07] they've invented a new word to describe it. For heat that tops
[00:10:11] 40°C, the new word is Coco shobi. It
[00:10:14] roughly translates to cruelly hot day. It's a move that makes
[00:10:18] sense if you know the language. Japan has spent centuries
[00:10:22] creating hundreds of nuanced words just for rain and
[00:10:25] blossoms, terms that often are tied to
[00:10:28] seasonal rituals and even the texture and feeling of a
[00:10:32] weather event like hanokage, the specific cool
[00:10:35] temperature felt when standing in the shadow of cherry
[00:10:39] blossoms. Or, she told shito, the soft, quiet,
[00:10:42] lingering drizzle that sounds like the word. But Coco shobi
[00:10:46] is different. It's a sobering, modern addition to the lexicon
[00:10:51] by the Japan Meteorological Agency. It reflect not just the
[00:10:55] temperature, but how the heat feels in their
[00:10:58] daily life, like exhausting, overwhelming or even dangerous.
[00:11:02] The word was chosen by the public via a national poll of
[00:11:06] nearly half a million people. The reason? It's top of mind?
[00:11:10] 2025 was the hottest summer in Japan since records began in
[00:11:15] 1898. In fact, more than 1/3 of all the 40°
[00:11:18] days ever recorded in the last 150 years have happened in just
[00:11:22] the last three years.
[00:11:24] The outlook for summer 2026 is also above normal. The IPCC and
[00:11:28] local meteorologists are warning that the combined
[00:11:31] effects of rising temps and humidity are increasingly
[00:11:34] posing a severe risk of mortality. They need people to
[00:11:38] take action. I think it's especially important for
[00:11:41] elderly, which would be one in three
[00:11:43] people over 65 years old in Japan,
[00:11:45] and they really need to take heed in terms of caring for
[00:11:49] their bodies and themselves. Parts of Canada can certainly
[00:11:52] relate to this. Think of the sweltering,
[00:11:55] heavy days in southern Ontario.
[00:11:57] In Quebec, where the humidity makes it
[00:11:59] nearly impossible for the body to cool itself through sweat.
[00:12:03] These are the most dangerous days of the year. In Japan,
[00:12:07] that humidity is relentless and months long,
[00:12:10] amplified by the heat island effect of these massive urban
[00:12:14] centres. Gradually, yearly, the temperature is rising up.
[00:12:18] So maybe it's better to name the extreme hot day. It's a
[00:12:22] it's kind of a warning. Japan is trying to ensure its
[00:12:26] citizens know exactly what they're up against.
[00:12:29] By the way, the word that came in second
[00:12:32] place in that poll? Chomo shobi, which means super,
[00:12:35] extremely hot day. But it seems extreme just doesn't cut it
[00:12:38] anymore.
[00:14:53] Welcome back. Our oceans and waterways are feeling the
[00:14:56] impacts of climate change. Let's look at what those
[00:14:58] changes could look like and the consequences they could have.
[00:15:04] Imagine sea levels were up here instead of down there. This
[00:15:07] isn't theoretical, it's happening. OK,
[00:15:10] so not in a couple years, but over a couple centuries.
[00:15:14] Which means now is exactly what we need to start planning. How
[00:15:18] we build our cities, how we adapt our coastlines,
[00:15:21] zoning laws, flood maps, sea walls,
[00:15:24] wetlands. This is an abstract. It's about staying ahead of the
[00:15:28] water. Because even if we cap warming at 1.5°C,
[00:15:31] the oceans aren't done rising.
[00:15:33] Scientists just rewound the numbers,
[00:15:36] drawing on ancient coral sediment, fossil shorelines,
[00:15:39] and found that the last time Earth was this warm, about 125,
[00:15:43] 000 years ago, sea levels were four to 10
[00:15:46] meters higher. That's because ice takes time to melt,
[00:15:49] but once it starts, it's hard to stop. Greenland
[00:15:52] and Antarctica that ice won't collapse overnight,
[00:15:55] but once they go, they don't quit. It's like
[00:15:58] tipping a jug of water. You can't freeze it mid poor. Even
[00:16:02] conservative projections show a 1m
[00:16:04] sea level rise in 75 years, but it keeps going from there.
[00:16:08] Right now, about 230 million people live
[00:16:11] on land less than 1m above sea level,
[00:16:13] about 1 billion within 10 meters. That's one in eight
[00:16:17] people on Earth. So no, your entire city isn't going
[00:16:21] underwater tomorrow. But this is coming,
[00:16:23] and we've still got time to get ready.
[00:19:57] Vancouver is one of the wettest cities on earth. Yet when it
[00:20:01] comes to drinking water,
[00:20:04] there is a crisis on the horizon. And the proposed
[00:20:07] solutions are kind of wild. Like a giant straw pipes you
[00:20:11] can drive through. Maybe even a new source lake. Stick with me.
[00:20:15] Let's start by understanding the existing drinking water
[00:20:18] system. I'm standing in front of one of them. This is
[00:20:22] Capilano Lake, one of three reservoirs on the
[00:20:25] North Shore Mountains that catch the runoff from 60,
[00:20:28] 000 hectares of protected land. That means no hiking,
[00:20:31] no camping, no human footprints. We lock
[00:20:34] down these watersheds a century
[00:20:36] ago to act as pristine catchment basins for Capilano,
[00:20:39] Seymour and Coquitlam reservoirs. These giant holdy
[00:20:43] lakes, if you will, provide the water to 3 million
[00:20:47] people. That's about half of BC's entire population. The
[00:20:51] genius of this system is the altitude.
[00:20:56] The mountains do the heavy lifting using gravity as the
[00:21:00] primary delivery method. So massive pumping stations and
[00:21:03] massive amounts of electricity are not needed,
[00:21:06] just pipes guiding the flow down to your glass. It's a
[00:21:09] perfect passive system for now. We're very lucky with the
[00:21:13] system we have. But the system has its limitations. And when
[00:21:17] the reservoirs are full and they're full and they need to
[00:21:20] last us throughout the summer, which brings us to conflict
[00:21:24] number one, climate change. This whole
[00:21:26] system works because the snow we get in the mountains
[00:21:29] in the winter slowly melts through the spring and summer,
[00:21:33] keeping our reservoirs full when demand is the highest.
[00:21:36] I've looked at the projections for Metro Vancouver snow. By
[00:21:40] the 20 fifties, the average winter snowpack is
[00:21:43] expected to decrease by almost 60%. By the twenty 80s,
[00:21:46] that number is closer to 80%. We're already losing winter
[00:21:50] snow as the season shifts, getting more of our snow as
[00:21:54] rain, and we're seeing glimpses of
[00:21:56] what that looks like when we get to the bottom of our lakes.
[00:22:00] Too early, Tighter restrictions.
[00:22:03] 2026 is the earliest. Metro Vancouver has introduced stage
[00:22:07] 2 water restrictions on record. Basically no lawn watering
[00:22:11] until the fall. And so we know we provide a billion liters in
[00:22:15] winter, so 1 billion liters. It's the
[00:22:17] size of BC Place. If you fill it up every day in winter,
[00:22:21] but in summer that increases by 50%.
[00:22:24] So how do we get more water when we need it?
[00:22:27] The first wild plan is the giant straw by the mid twenty
[00:22:30] 30s, Metro Vancouver is launching a
[00:22:33] second water intake at Coquitlam Lake to double its
[00:22:36] water withdrawal. The water is already there,
[00:22:39] it's just physically out of reach of our current pipes.
[00:22:42] We're tunneling a brand new lower intake to grab that cold,
[00:22:46] high quality water from the depths. Think of it like
[00:22:49] sticking a longer straw in your bubble tea to get the last few
[00:22:53] curls at the bottom of the cup. So they currently
[00:22:56] provides drinking water to about 1/3 of the region. And
[00:23:00] with the upgrade, eventually it's going to be
[00:23:03] able to provide more than half of the region. It's a very Big
[00:23:06] Lake. It's also very deep. The deepest part is actually below
[00:23:10] sea level. But even if we have all the water we need,
[00:23:13] we have to move it. And we live in a major seismic zone
[00:23:16] conflict #2 our water has to travel under massive bodies of
[00:23:20] water like the Burrard Inlet to get to your tap. I've done a
[00:23:23] deep dive into the liquification hazard maps. And
[00:23:26] the big concern here is that during a large earthquake,
[00:23:30] the ground, especially near the riverbanks,
[00:23:32] turned to jello. So if a main pipe snaps 30 meters below the
[00:23:36] water, you can't just send a scuba
[00:23:38] diver down to patch it. We could be dry for weeks.
[00:23:42] About 75% of our primary pipes have been upgraded to seismic
[00:23:45] resilient joints designed to bend and stretch like this one
[00:23:48] rather than snap if the earth cracks,
[00:23:50] correct. This pipe here is 3.2 meters in diameter. So yes,
[00:23:54] you could drive a small car through there. It's challenging
[00:23:57] in the sense that, you know, we do have to make sure that
[00:24:00] the pipes are the right size, right material. And it's going
[00:24:03] to be able to withstand these large earthquakes that you know,
[00:24:07] we're one day you're going to see unfortunately, right?
[00:24:10] But engineering can't solve everything if our habits don't
[00:24:13] change. That
[00:24:15] leads us to conflict #3 rising demand. We're adding 35,
[00:24:17] 000 new neighbors every year. Based on forecasted demand and
[00:24:21] population growth, the region will likely need
[00:24:24] additional water storage by the mid twenty 30s if relying
[00:24:28] solely on the current systems capabilities. But it turns out
[00:24:32] Vancouver also just straight up uses a lot of water. The
[00:24:36] Vancouver region are the highest per capita water users
[00:24:39] in in the country. So, you know, it's not a it's not a table we
[00:24:43] want to be first on, I think. So it's definitely a
[00:24:47] A2 pronged
[00:24:48] approach. It's let's all use less and let's plan for the
[00:24:51] second intake at Coquitlam so we can access more of the the
[00:24:55] high quality water source water that we have in this region.
[00:24:59] Even with the longer straw and the bendy pipes,
[00:25:01] the math still doesn't quite add up for the next century.
[00:25:05] Metro Vancouver is evaluating 7 mega projects to get us through
[00:25:09] to 2120. We're talking about entirely new source lakes
[00:25:13] outside our current map, like Harrison Lake or Pit Lake
[00:25:16] lakes, by the way, that haven't already been
[00:25:19] earmarked for BC Hydro use in the future. We're also talking about
[00:25:23] raising the Seymour Falls Dam by 53 meters. And these are
[00:25:26] engineering hurdles on unseated territories. Altering these
[00:25:30] waterways requires decades of engagement with local First
[00:25:33] Nations. Our 100 year survival equation is a race move. Water
[00:25:37] from mountains that are losing snow across an earthquake fault
[00:25:40] line to a sprawling city with a growing number of taps. The
[00:25:44] Metro Vancouver has planned for 100 years before,
[00:25:47] so they're betting billions that we can out engineer the clock.
[00:25:58] Coming up, we're taking a look at stories
[00:26:00] focused on climate change. Stay with us.
[00:28:11] And we're back. So how do these changing temperatures impact
[00:28:14] wildlife? Well, just like humans, animals,
[00:28:16] plants, insects are forced to adapt to
[00:28:19] our changing world. For some it means shrinking habitats,
[00:28:22] but for others new opportunities.
[00:28:28] A colony of Penguins on an Antarctic island,
[00:28:30] dramatically shifting their behaviour in the face of
[00:28:33] climate change. We don't know whether to be
[00:28:36] a happy or or very sad yet, but for now we're alarmed. The
[00:28:40] big change? The birds are breeding earlier,
[00:28:43] a shift that's happening at record speed. Ignacio Martinez
[00:28:47] led a decade long study on three species of Antarctic
[00:28:51] Penguins. The sweeping survey relied on time lapse cameras
[00:28:55] monitoring 37 colonies of Penguins in a region warming
[00:28:59] three times faster than the rest of the world. All three,
[00:29:03] Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie, moved up their breeding seasons.
[00:29:07] Gentoos had the biggest change 13 days earlier on average,
[00:29:11] and up to 24 days for some colonies. When we looked at the
[00:29:15] time series of 10 years one after the other,
[00:29:18] we realized like oh damn, this is the fastest change in
[00:29:22] any vertebrate ever.
[00:29:24] Shifting breeding patterns could help some species adapt
[00:29:28] to climate change and has been seen in other plants and
[00:29:31] animals, but it's not good news for all.
[00:29:34] And that could pit Penguin species against each other over
[00:29:38] scarce food and land. Like we only have one species. The
[00:29:41] chances that species survives is very scarce.
[00:29:45] Martinez says the findings suggest there could be winners
[00:29:49] and losers of climate change, but overall it paints A
[00:29:52] concerning picture for the future of Antarctic Penguins.
[00:29:56] In Ayat Singh, CBC News, Toronto.
[00:30:01] Scientists have confirmed something that shouldn't have
[00:30:03] happened. The first sighting of a mosquito in Iceland. The news
[00:30:06] sent a buzz around the world. It was a surprise because it
[00:30:09] was the only country in the world that was mosquito free.
[00:30:13] But the story isn't really about Iceland,
[00:30:15] it's about what it means for Canada. Canadian scientists are
[00:30:18] already modeling what our mosquito future might look like
[00:30:22] as the climate warms. There are roughly 80 different mosquito
[00:30:25] species in Canada. Some have been here for centuries and
[00:30:28] others are newcomers chasing the heat.
[00:30:30] But Canada's north is warming four times faster than the rest
[00:30:34] of the world, meaning some parts of the
[00:30:37] country are entering into the perfect breeding temperature
[00:30:41] range for mosquitoes. And many of the newcomers carry disease.
[00:30:45] It is Kulick PNS, which is the vector for West
[00:30:48] Nile virus, so it has spread geographically
[00:30:50] from the east of Canada all the way out to the West,
[00:30:54] most recently seeing it in Edmonton and in Calgary in 2022.
[00:30:57] These are, this is a species of mosquito
[00:31:00] that we have never seen previously
[00:31:02] in these parts of Canada. A species once limited by cold is
[00:31:06] now surviving coast to coast to coast. So you probably are
[00:31:10] aware that this is a mosquito that transmit diseases such as
[00:31:14] dengue, chikungunya virus and Zika
[00:31:17] virus. We've not only detected these mosquitoes in adult
[00:31:21] stages, but we've also detected them as
[00:31:23] larvae and its eggs. So knowing that they now have their full
[00:31:28] life cycles in Canada is, I guess some evidence that
[00:31:31] these mosquito populations
[00:31:33] have established. And so yes, the risk for increased mosquito
[00:31:36] borne disease is real, which means keeping track of
[00:31:39] these little suckers makes sense. But Canada doesn't have
[00:31:43] a national mosquito surveillance program. Each
[00:31:45] province runs its own, leaving gaps in the regions
[00:31:48] changing the fastest. But it's not all bad news. Citizens
[00:31:51] Science may be one of our best tools to track and make plans
[00:31:55] for this future. In fact, the first citizen science
[00:31:58] mosquito project led by the University of Windsor just
[00:32:01] wrapped up its inaugural season. The more we tracked them,
[00:32:04] the better chance we have to stay one step ahead.
[00:36:30] So what changes can we make, and what changes will we be
[00:36:32] forced to make as we adapt? Shifting our diets could be key.
[00:36:36] What we eat and what we grow will change as we face warmer
[00:36:40] temperatures, attempt to feed more people and
[00:36:42] try to cut down on emissions.
[00:36:47] In a screenhouse at the Kentfield Research and
[00:36:51] Development Centre, Beatrice Amiot is surrounded by
[00:36:54] strawberry plants. To most people,
[00:36:57] they probably look similar, but a closer look shows there's
[00:37:01] lots of variety, 160 varieties to be exact.
[00:37:04] There are tall and short plants, large and small leaves and
[00:37:09] different hues of green. Amiot is part of a team across Canada
[00:37:13] searching for varieties that can cope with our changing
[00:37:17] climate. Something that can withstand A drier year of colder year,
[00:37:21] a wetter year, and still have good
[00:37:23] productivity under all those conditions is more likely to be
[00:37:27] resilient to climate change.
[00:37:28] Amyot and researchers in other parts of Canada will plant some
[00:37:33] of these strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and
[00:37:37] then share data on how they fare. Growing conditions will
[00:37:41] be a key part of that data. How well they thrive in drought,
[00:37:45] heat, excessive rain, or whatever else nature throws
[00:37:49] their way. So, for example, drought is what we've
[00:37:52] encountered here of Nova Scotia. Other parts of Canada have
[00:37:55] experienced heat Dome conditions and winter freeze
[00:37:58] snaps that have been really detrimental to Berry crops. So
[00:38:01] those extreme conditions are something that some species and
[00:38:05] some varieties within species are more tolerant to than
[00:38:08] others.
[00:38:10] Phillip Caddy knows that unpredictability all too well.
[00:38:13] At his farm in Lakeville, he produces strawberry plants
[00:38:17] to sell to growers in the US and Canada.
[00:38:20] We've been for the last 10 years starting to see the
[00:38:24] effects of climate change. We've had some of the wettest
[00:38:27] years, some of the driest years, colder temperatures in the
[00:38:31] winter, just drastic fluctuation in
[00:38:34] temperatures and and moisture. Caddy works with the Kentfield
[00:38:37] Research Centre to field test their varieties. It's up to him
[00:38:41] to find the right ones to send to his customers. And what
[00:38:45] works for one customer in Florida may not work for
[00:38:49] another in Saskatchewan with its harsh winters.
[00:38:52] Back at the research station, the final product, the berries,
[00:38:56] are also put under a microscope to evaluate properties like
[00:39:01] colour, gloss and firmness. But the
[00:39:04] process of developing the perfect varieties and the
[00:39:07] perfect berries isn't fast. Amyot says it can take 10 to 15
[00:39:12] years to bring a new strawberry variety to the commercial
[00:39:16] market, and even more for other berries.
[00:39:19] Frances Willick, CBC News, Kentville.
[00:47:43] How possible is it to cut down our CO2 emissions and what are
[00:47:46] the alternatives? Let's take a look at the
[00:47:48] problem and some potential solutions.
[00:47:52] The end of fossil fuels in the near future? Well,
[00:47:54] that's either wildly optimistic or completely unrealistic,
[00:47:58] depending on who you ask. But climate science has a very
[00:48:01] specific answer to this question. Not what we hope for
[00:48:04] or what governments promise, but what the physics actually
[00:48:08] allows. Let's get into it. OK, reality check. First of all,
[00:48:11] when climate scientists talk about the near future,
[00:48:14] they're almost never talking about 0 fossil fuels. They're
[00:48:18] talking about net zero, a world where the carbon we
[00:48:21] emit is balanced by the carbon we remove. More on that in a
[00:48:25] moment. What the IPCC models look at. That's the latest
[00:48:28] agreed upon research from climate scientists around the
[00:48:31] world. Is net 0 emissions a reality where the world
[00:48:34] theoretically has time to adapt? So why are we trying to stop
[00:48:37] the burning of fossil fuels anyway? Or remember,
[00:48:40] fossil fuels are the main driving force behind rising
[00:48:43] temperatures that threaten to push ecosystems past a point of
[00:48:47] no return, irreversible damage. Climate
[00:48:49] science has found that range to be between 1.5 and two degrees
[00:48:53] of warming. To me,
[00:48:55] what I find most, you know, most important
[00:48:59] is to understand just how much every fraction of a degree
[00:49:03] matters. So how completely do we need to move away from
[00:49:06] fossil fuels? The good news is that in every
[00:49:09] IPCC scenario that limits warming to that tolerable level,
[00:49:12] fossil fuels don't vanish completely. But fossil fuel use
[00:49:16] should be peaking now or have already peaked. That's right.
[00:49:19] We can't burn anymore than we're burning right now. We're
[00:49:23] at the Max. We already have more coal,
[00:49:25] oil and gas projects than we can afford to burn. Remember,
[00:49:28] this is from the perspective
[00:49:30] of climate science. There are other strongly held views
[00:49:34] rooted in economics and industry that have reasons to
[00:49:37] continue to extract fossil fuels. But according to the
[00:49:40] climate science, by mid century, only 24 years from now,
[00:49:44] global carbon dioxide emissions need to hit net zero. What
[00:49:47] we're talking about is reaching a balance where we're putting
[00:49:51] into, where what we're putting into
[00:49:53] the atmosphere equals what we're taking out. That's what
[00:49:57] will allow temperatures to stabilize,
[00:49:59] and carbon capture technology
[00:50:01] can pull carbon out of the air or bury it underground,
[00:50:04] technology that may also help us pull our temps back if we do
[00:50:08] overshoot our limits. Carbon capture probably warrants its
[00:50:12] own explainer video, so stay tuned. But the answer
[00:50:15] to the question will we ever be off fossil fuels is probably
[00:50:19] not entirely anytime soon. So how do we get to a
[00:50:22] scientifically acceptable level of fossil fuel use?
[00:50:25] The IPCC runs hundreds of computer model futures,
[00:50:28] testing different ways the world could cut emissions,
[00:50:31] measuring how the climate responds. And in everyone where
[00:50:35] we hit our mark, it's not because of a single
[00:50:37] breakthrough technology, but because of scale. We're
[00:50:40] talking more wind, more solar, more electrification,
[00:50:43] and much less burning. Let's get specific about that last
[00:50:46] point. To stay below that critical threshold of warming,
[00:50:50] the science shows that roughly 80% of known coal reserves,
[00:50:53] about half of gas, and about 1/3 of oil must
[00:50:56] remain unburned. And there's a problem with that. When
[00:50:59] scientists compare existing fossil fuel infrastructure to
[00:51:02] the remaining carbon budget, well, the math doesn't math. The
[00:51:05] existing infrastructure indicates far more fossil fuel
[00:51:08] burning ahead. Add to that the fact that energy demand just
[00:51:12] keeps growing. I mean, none of this is easy. It means
[00:51:15] rebuilding energy systems faster than at any point in
[00:51:18] history. And yes, it likely means carbon capture
[00:51:20] technology will be needed. And despite the fact that the world
[00:51:24] has already invested some $2 trillion in renewable energy,
[00:51:27] there will be political and economic ramifications of
[00:51:30] suggesting we leave $6 trillion worth of business in the ground.
[00:51:34] Climate change has a direct cost on our economies,
[00:51:38] so it's not the difference between taking action and not
[00:51:42] taking action. It is actually also the difference between the
[00:51:47] damages that climate change will cause.
[00:51:51] So here's the uncomfortable conclusion. The science says a
[00:51:55] net zero future soon is not only necessary,
[00:51:57] but doable. What it doesn't say is whether we as humans take
[00:52:01] that path or not.
[01:00:17] Thanks for joining us. You can find more news on
[01:00:19] climatechangeandthelateststorie smakingheadlines@cbcnews.ca.
[01:00:32] You're watching CBC News. I'm Steven Dsouza,
[01:00:34] Co host of The 5th Estate. Here's what's making news right
[01:00:38] now.
[01:00:40] CBC NEWSROOM. I'M DEANA SUMANAC-JOHNSON.
[01:00:42] I'M DEANA SUMANAC-JOHNSON. PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY'S IN
[01:00:44] PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY'S IN OTTAWA WHERE THE FINAL LIBERAL
[01:00:47] OTTAWA WHERE THE FINAL LIBERAL CAUCUS MEETINGS IS IN THE BOOKS CAUCUS MEETINGS IS IN THE BOOKS AHEAD OF M.P.s RETURNING TO
[01:00:50] AHEAD OF M.P.s RETURNING TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MONDAY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MONDAY FOR THE FALL SITTING.
[01:00:53] FOR THE FALL SITTING. MARK CARNEY DIDN'T TAKE QUESTION MARK CARNEY DIDN'T TAKE QUESTION FROM REPORTERS AS HE ARRIVED
[01:00:56] FROM REPORTERS AS HE ARRIVED THIS MORNING. THIS MORNING. HE'S BACK FROM A BUSY WEEK THAT
[01:00:59] HE'S BACK FROM A BUSY WEEK THAT INCLUDED AN INVESTMENT SUMMIT IN INCLUDED AN INVESTMENT SUMMIT IN TORONTO, AND A SPEECH TO THE
[01:01:03] TORONTO, AND A SPEECH TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IN FRANCE.