Environmental groups say there’s a reason why the federal government quietly released its latest climate report, which finds that average temperatures in Canada are set to go up by at least 3.5 C by the end of the century.
The report, which analyzes the impacts of climate change in Canada, was posted to a government website with no fanfare on Thursday evening ahead of the Labour Day long weekend, without ministerial availability to the media, a protocol that was in place when the government released its first report in 2019. The second edition concludes the rise in temperature will have devastating impacts for communities, from coast to coast to coast.
Page 15 of the report’s summary reads: “Warming temperatures have driven wide-ranging, interconnected, and sustained changes across Canada. The changes include more extreme heat, less extreme cold, longer growing seasons, longer fire seasons, earlier peak stream flow, shorter snow and ice cover seasons, thinning glaciers, thawing permafrost, warming oceans, and rising sea level. Human-caused warming is the only explanation for the collective changes observed.”
Since coming into power, “Prime Minister Carney’s government has dismantled much of Canada’s climate progress,” wrote Julia Levin, associate director of national climate at Environmental Defence, which is why it attempted to “bury its own report.”
Carney has cancelled the consumer carbon tax, scrapped the electric vehicle sales mandate and supported a new Alberta pipeline while exempting the province from clean electricity regulations.
A previous iteration of the report was put out in 2019, and Levin notes that the government of the day ensured it was widely shared. The media was given background briefings to understand the content and given access to press conferences. On Thursday, federal environment minister Julie Dabrusin’s department issued a news release insisting the government is committed to “reaching net-zero by 2050.”
The only way to avoid the worst impacts of climate change is to “quickly transition away from producing and burning oil, gas and coal,” said Levin — steps the current government is not taking.
Canada’s National Observer requested an interview with the minister. Instead, her office sent an email statement that read in part: the government is “moving with urgency to fight climate change,” and noting “climate change is a global challenge.”
However, Chris Severson-Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute, said Mark Carney “cannot legitimately claim he has a plan that would see Canada do its fair share to prevent destructive levels of global climate change.”
He says considering the laundry list of climate rollbacks, the national electricity strategy “has become Canada’s best tool for reducing emissions,” but says it’s currently a “concept.”
Adaptation
Ryan Ness, adaptation research director at the Canadian Climate Institute, said in a statement that Canada must prepare for a now-inevitable future in which the planet is much warmer.
The report finds that Canada will be about 2.7 C warmer than pre-industrial levels by 2050, “close to twice the global average, regardless of actions taken to reduce global emissions over that time,” explained Ness.
Even a best-case emissions scenario — where the world reaches net-zero by 2050 — temperatures would still hit 3.5 C over pre-industrial levels in Canada, and then stabilize around 2100. That “requires planning for decades of worsening wildfires, droughts, storms and damage from extreme weather,” said Ness.
The report “describes physics, not fate,” he said, while stressing that current climate policy worldwide is not ambitious enough to reach the best-case emissions scenario.
Instead, at the current rate, Canada would experience an average increase of 5 C by 2100, while continuing to warm.
“In that scenario, glaciers in Western Canada would virtually disappear; winter warming would top 10 degrees across much of Nunavut and Nunavik; and the southern Prairies will face up to five times as many severe droughts compared to today,” Ness said.
“If, instead, global emissions begin declining immediately and reach net-zero in the 2070s, average warming in Canada would level out at 3.5 C.”
The report shows that Canada needs to take climate adaptation more seriously, said Ness, explaining that preparing communities for the impacts of climate change is economically beneficial.
“Every dollar invested in preparing infrastructure, communities and businesses for floods, heat, and heavy rain returns up to $15 in avoided losses, according to our analysis,” he said.
“Cutting emissions in Canada and around the globe will decide the rest, including whether Canadians have to live with the consequences of more than 5 C of warming or 3.5 C.”
With files from The Canadian Press
September 4th 2026
