Report makes death forecast | Canadian researchers question findings, but insist climate change is a real concern that will have an impact around the world
Data from a recently released report linking five million annual deaths to climate change and a carbon economy might raise unnecessary red flags, said a University of Regina professor.
But that’s not to say the effects of climate change aren’t real and won’t be felt across the globe and on the Canadian Prairies, said Dave Sauchyn, a climate change researcher who works with the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative.
An organization representing 20 governments of developing countries commissioned the Climate Vulnerability Monitor study, which forecasts the human and economic impacts of climate change from 2010-30.
Read Also
Supreme Court gives thumbs-up emoji case the thumbs down
Saskatchewan farmer wanted to appeal the court decision that a thumbs-up emoji served as a signature to a grain delivery contract.
It found that climate change is costing the global economy 1.6 percent of global GDP and forecasts a growing impact totalling trillions of dollars as temperatures and pollution rise.
It also links five million annual deaths to climate change and a carbon-intensive economy: 400,000 to hunger and communicable diseases and 4.5 million largely to air pollution. That amounts to 100 million deaths over the study’s 20-year period.
“My interpretation of that would be not that I would expect that many people to die, but that I would expect a large number of people to be affected by climate change. I’m not sure how you can say that they’ll necessarily die,” said Sauchyn.
“That seems like an awful precise or a specific projection to me, given the large number of uncertainties we have in projecting climate change.”
Barry Smit, a University of Guelph, Ont., professor who studies adaptive management in Canadian agriculture, said deaths associated with droughts, floods and other factors contributing to malnutrition and illness aren’t a revelation.
“I think that there are serious consequences of human-induced climate change for the way in which we live in this world. In Canada we’ll adjust. Some industries will have to change and some will benefit and some will go under. And some people will lose jobs and some people will gain jobs. And there will be some serious implications for human health,” he said. “But in many parts of the world, there is already complete upheaval of livelihoods and of lives.”
The report shows climate change contributing $350 billion US in lost production by 2030, up from $50 billion in 2010. Ninety percent of that will be in developing countries, said the report, which identified Africa as most vulnerable.
“One degree C rise in temperature is associated with 10 percent productivity loss in farming. For us, it means losing about four million metric tonnes of food grain, amounting to about $2.5 billion,” Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh and chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, said in a news release.
Smit said those rising temperatures could create new opportunities for prairie producers. Rising temperatures will extend the growing season and mean more frost-free days, but they’ll also bring drier conditions and more extreme weather events.
“What we do know is that the likelihood of hotter and drier years is much greater now than it was 20 years ago,” said Smit.
“Producers should factor that into their decision making, but if they don’t, well good luck to them.”
As part of a five-year project Sauchyn is leading with PARC, interviews have been conducted with 140 people in four rural communities in Saskatchewan and Alberta about their experiences with climate extremes.
Researchers will combine that information with their scientific work and develop a communication plan with their partners.
Sauchyn said those efforts will be unrolled over the winter.
“We want to actually be working with the producers in the interpretation and the use of this information,” he said. “We don’t want to tell them what they already know. That’s a huge mistake that academics often make.”
