With sustained winds of nearly 300 kilometres per hour, storm surges of four metres, and half a metre of rain, Hurricane Melissa flattened much of western Jamaica, doing somewhere between US$8 and $15 billion in damage. But even as roofs were still flying off churches and palms were bending like stalks of grass, Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s minister of tourism, was already giving interviews to international media, encouraging travellers to visit and to visit soon.

The almost manic push to have all the island’s hotels operational by mid-December, when the peak season begins, threw into sharp relief a contradiction that underlies the Caribbean as a whole: it depends on an industry that, in some respects, is also responsible for its undoing.

The Caribbean is the most tourism-dependent region in the world. It is also one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Warming oceans, rising sea levels and increasingly frequent extreme weather events represent existential threats to the region: not only to residents but also to the tourism industry on which they depend. Sustainability, in this context, is not a nice add-on, but a necessity. If tourism is to remain a mainstay of Caribbean economies, it has to be resilient to the impacts of climate change, protective of increasingly fragile ecosystems and beneficial to local economies as a whole.

It’s asking a lot of an industry that, as Antiguan author Jamaica Kincaid argued in her 1988 book A Small Place, exhibits a similarly extractive quality to the slave-based plantation economies of the 17th and 18th centuries. Kincaid draws a direct line from Caribbean sugar to sand: resources that have been exploited by foreign powers with little to no regard for the well-being of locals.

“Tourism is both a lifeline and a liability,” says Therez Walker, who grew up in Antigua and is now a lecturer on sustainable tourism at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. “It’s a very uncomfortable reality that a lot of people don’t want to face.”

Half a century ago, when the imperial powers that colonized the Caribbean dropped preferential trade arrangements for their agricultural exports – primarily bananas, sugar and rum – these tropical islands, with World Bank support, set their sights on the postwar middle class’s growing appetite for beach vacations. Tourism ministries were established and tax incentives were offered to foreign developers. In 1970, some four million international guests visited the Caribbean. Since then, the figure has increased almost 10-fold.

Tourism now accounts for an average of 11% of the gross domestic product of the 33 political entities – sovereign states, dependencies and overseas territories – that make up the Caribbean. But in some countries, the sector constitutes a virtual monoculture. In Antigua, for instance, tourism generates 88% of the country’s GDP and provides 91% of all jobs, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Such dependency on a single industry creates vulnerability, particularly when only a fraction of its economic benefits flow back to the country. The vast majority of revenue generated by Caribbean tourism lands with the foreign operators who control it: airlines, cruise companies and hotel chains. The United Nations World Tourism Organization puts the level of economic “leakage” from Caribbean tourism at about 80%. At the same time, local governments have to contend with 100% of the waste that the industry generates.

Climate change is only amplifying this vulnerability. Over the last five decades, rising sea temperatures have cost the Caribbean almost half of its hard coral cover: a blow to the marine life that coral sustains as well as the huge revenues generated by snorkelling and diving. At current rates, sea level rise is expected to reduce the Caribbean’s sandy beaches by half and to force the closure of a third of existing hotels by the end of this century. Likewise, extreme heat and storm events like Hurricane Melissa are becoming more intense and frequent.

When Walker, who has been based in the Netherlands since 2022, returns home to Antigua, she feels both frustration and sadness. The beach she went to as a child is barely recognizable. The water is higher, the shore depleted. Gone are the mangrove swamps and the thriving fish populations they once hosted. In her community, water is in chronically short supply: many households have running water only twice a week. When she drives past water trucks parked outside the island’s all-inclusive resorts, she is resentful – not of the guests inside, but of decision-makers who have failed to protect domestic and environmental interests.

The needs of tourists and residents are often not aligned. Drought for locals translates into a sun-filled vacation for visitors. The mangroves that serve as natural barriers against erosion and storms are the enemy of the pristine sand beach. The protected coastline that hosts animal, plant and marine life is an obstacle to shoreline resorts.

“Our policymakers go to UN climate conventions and talk about our vulnerability,” Walker says. “And then they come home and approve another huge development on an ecologically sensitive coastline.”

According to Beienetch “Bennie” Watson, who teaches tourism policy and planning at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, the problem with Caribbean tourism is its foundation in a “colonial logic” that is top-down and externally driven. “Those seated around the table haven’t reflected the voice of ‘the people,’” she says. “The people’s vision of tourism hasn’t been heard.”

But in recent years, Watson has seen a shift, prompted in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, when Caribbean hotels stood empty and tourism revenue dropped by half. Some islands took the opportunity to promote homestays and longer-term accommodation options. Others directed visitors to more tailored experiences in eco-, adventure, and rural tourism. Watson is encouraged by a younger generation of traveller that, often prompted by social media, wants to explore outside resort walls.

A 2025 World Bank report on the future of Caribbean tourism emphasized the importance of moving beyond “sea, sun and sand,” pointing out how the short-term economic benefits of volume tourism – all-inclusive resorts and cruise tourism – have overshadowed their high environmental, energy, water-consumption and emissions costs.

Three months after Melissa, Jamaican Tourism Minister Bartlett went on an international marketing blitz to boost investor and traveller confidence in his island. At a luncheon in New York City, he announced that 70% of Jamaica’s hotels were up and running: a remarkable accomplishment.

But Watson, who lives in Kingston, has witnessed recovery on another level. Members of her church go out every Thursday to help communities that are rebuilding. She says the hurricane has proven something important to Jamaicans: that the island is close-knit, solidarity is strong, and residents’ needs matter.

Therez Walker agrees that change has to come from below. “We need to demand more of tourism,” she says. “This is an ‘us’ problem.”

Naomi Buck is a Toronto-based writer.

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As he observed these shifts, the young man saw the potential to improve people’s lives by making technology more energy-efficient.

Amidst growing electrification, the country’s bike riders traded their flame lamps for battery-powered electronic ones. These devices were seen as unreliable due to their limited life of only two to three hours. Over six months of testing, Panasonic founder Kōnosuke Matsushita developed a bullet-shaped bicycle lamp that could operate for 30 to 40 hours.

More than 100 years later, Panasonic’s work is still founded on these ideas: making people’s lives better by making technology more responsive and more efficient.

The one thing that has changed is our more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of industrialization on people and the planet. “The society in which we live means that the pace of consumption is accelerating,” says Markus Reichling, general manager of green transformation at Panasonic. “[It’s] a model that is fast but unsustainable for the planet.”

To help address climate change with the urgency it requires and continue its work supporting Matsushita’s founding principles, the company publicly shared about its Panasonic Green Impact initiative for the first time in 2022 to deepen its commitment to sustainability. The company has begun the work to either neutralize or otherwise avoid more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide as part of the work embodied by the three pillars of Panasonic Green Impact. That’s a global total of around 31.7 billion tons, according to the company’s Sustainability Databook.

Investing in the circular economy

As part of this effort, Panasonic has increased its investment in the circular economy, a system focused on reusing and regenerating materials and products to enhance production and manufacturing efficiency. “By embracing the circular economy, a product is given an extended – or even second – life and waste is reduced,” Reichling says.

One example showcasing how design can be developed with the circular economy in mind is Panasonic’s MultiShape, a personal-care product that offers multiple options for attachment heads, like a razor, toothbrush and trimmer, that are all compatible with the same base, motor and battery – and thus replacing the need for multiple individual products. The unique design could save as much as 60% of the resources it would take to make a single-function item, such as an electric toothbrush.

“Panasonic is still continuing to produce and sell individual products,” Reichling says. “But, with the MultiShape, we would like to offer the customer a more sustainable, more responsible solution.”

Cutting costs – and emissions – for its business partners

This same innovative approach applies to Panasonic’s work with its business partners: across the industries the company serves, Panasonic supplies cutting-edge solutions that prioritize longevity, resource efficiency and responsible design. Panasonic is working to advance these efforts at Hussmann, a Panasonic company – an industry leader that provides display merchandisers, refrigeration systems, connected solutions, installation and services to food retailers around the world.

Refrigeration plays a central role in the food retail industry: customers not only expect fresh quality, but spoiled food and waste increases costs for businesses. Traditional refrigeration solutions provide additional environmental challenges, chief among them continuous refrigerant leaks.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average supermarket leaks almost 400 kilograms of R-404A refrigerant per year – the equivalent of emissions from 339 cars. Hussmann addressed this challenge head-on with its cloud-based platform StoreConnect that leverages advanced data analytics to detect leaks in very early stages, which traditional monitoring equipment would not detect until the system runs out of refrigerant.

Recognizing the urgency of this issue, Hussmann implemented StoreConnect in 2022 across numerous customer sites. The platform’s “advanced refrigerant leak detection” technology provides near real-time data, allowing technicians to proactively address leaks before they become critical and reduce environmental impact.

“By significantly reducing leaks – achieving 30%-plus leak-rate reductions in the first year – we’re accelerating detection, transforming refrigerant management from reactive to proactive, and ultimately minimizing environmental impact. This shift isn’t just improving operational efficiency; it’s driving sustainability and cost savings for our customers,” says Sarah Greenwood, senior vice president of connected solutions at Hussmann.

Starting at the source

Beyond the design of its products and solutions, Panasonic is working to transform its “own impact” by assessing the ways it can reduce its carbon emissions across its value chain. This starts with the company’s efforts to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide across all its manufacturing sites by 2030.

By the end of 2024, Panasonic had achieved 44 net-zero factories.

“Here in North America, Panasonic is approaching the climate crisis from a few different angles, starting with reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions at our Panasonic factories,” says Andrea Murphy, director of environmental affairs compliance and sustainability at Panasonic Corporation of North America.

Scope 1 emissions are emissions that occur directly in a company’s own value chain, while Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from purchased or acquired electricity, steam, heat or cooling that are generated off-site and consumed by the company.

To achieve these net-zero goals, Panasonic is leveraging a combination of on-site renewable energy generation – such as solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells – alongside energy storage systems to ensure a stable power supply. The company also enhances energy efficiency through advanced management systems and optimized manufacturing processes.

Working to further close the gap, Panasonic purchases renewable energy and credits. Also, the company collaborates with clean energy networks such as the Clean Energy Buyers Association – all as part of its commitment to transforming its global manufacturing sites into zero-carbon factories by 2030. “Our commitment is to reduce carbon emissions by more than 300 million tons, which we calculated to be 1% of the current global emissions,” Murphy says. “I believe that’s well respected by our customers.”

The company believes that Panasonic Green Impact is a comprehensive initiative that can have a greater influence on the larger business community by establishing these practices as a foundational part of doing business.

According to Murphy, Panasonic takes every opportunity to promote decarbonization and energy-saving behaviours among customers, businesses, governments and investors: “Our partners and suppliers are hand-chosen. We partner with companies that have very similar initiatives to Panasonic, so they’re very happy to collaborate and work together [with us] toward those common goals.”

* Panasonic Corp has ranked in the 2025 Clean200. 

Andrea Murphy, director of environmental affairs and sustainability,
Panasonic Corporation of North America

Andrea Murphy is the director of environmental affairs and sustainability at Panasonic Corporation of North America. Since 2019, she has led and implemented the company’s regulatory compliance, recycling and sustainability initiatives. A key member of the company’s Global Environmental Task Force, she proudly supports Panasonic’s Green Impact initiative, dedicated to reducing carbon dioxide and promoting renewable-energy efforts that will help secure a sustainable future for customers and communities around the world.

An experienced environmental professional, Murphy has 19 years of environmental management experience, including five years focused on general management experience in project management, finance and strategy. Prior to joining Panasonic, Murphy held multiple environmental compliance roles with Verizon to focused on wireless network infrastructure, new product launches and agency relations. She also served as a regulator with the Santa Barbara County Fire Department’s hazardous materials unit, enforcing hazardous waste and hazardous materials regulatory management programs.

Murphy holds an undergraduate degree in environmental studies from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a master’s degree in environmental management from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She also earned her certification in Igniting Performance with Purpose from Duke Corporate Education.

Outside of her work responsibilities, Murphy serves as president of MRM E-Cycling Management, a consortium of manufacturers that aims to realize convenient environmentally responsible recycling opportunities to consumers nationwide. She is also an active member of her town’s Environmental Commission, providing leadership and vision on conservation and sustainability actions and policies for residents, businesses and natural resources. Currently, she is the executive sponsor for Panasonic’s LGBTQ+ business impact group, PRISM, supporting allyship and fostering inclusivity for all.

Recent speaking ops:

CES 2025: Rechargeable Batteries in Consumer Tech- A Path to Sustainability?

CES 2025: Circular Economy Innovations 2025

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But something interesting has happened in the 142 days (yes, that’s all it’s been) since Trump took office. In an increasing number of electoral contests that have occurred around the world since January 20, there has been a palpable anti-Trump backlash. This will have significant – and positive – consequences with respect to climate change progress.

We know what happened in Canada, of course. In the face of unhinged annexationist rhetoric emanating from the White House, Canadians chose a prime minister they hope will be able to keep the country safe from the threat of U.S. economic hostility, or worse. This anti-Trump sentiment was so strong, it enabled Mark Carney and the Liberal Party to close a 20-point gap with the Conservatives and propelled them to one of the least likely electoral victories in recent Canadian history. The Liberal platform, as opposed to the Conservatives’, was quite detailed in terms of its aspirations for continuing progress on climate change.

A few days later, something very similar happened in the Australian election. The Australian Labor Party achieved a dramatic come-from-behind victory because of the electorate’s Trump concerns. Improved climate-change policy will be one of the beneficiaries of this unlikely turn of events: the ALP platform is very strong – for instance – on continuing Australia’s clean energy transition.

A few European examples: in Germany, despite overt support from Elon Musk for the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany party, the February election was won by the Christian Democratic Union. The impact on climate-change policy will be profound and positive: not only has the CDU agreed to press for German carbon neutrality by 2045, but it remains supportive of 90% decarbonization in Europe by 2040.

In the Romanian election less than a month ago, the Trump-backed candidate unexpectedly lost and the new President Nicuşor Dan has pledged continued support for decarbonization. And a similar result was delivered a few days later in tiny Albania.

I don’t want to pretend that everything is coming up roses. In fact, in just the last few days, the Trump-backed candidate in Poland narrowly beat the more Europe-positive candidate in what spells a setback for Poland’s climate-change leadership.

But the string of electoral losses that Trump-backed forces have sustained on three continents over the last short four months should serve as a reminder that many people around the world have concluded that Trump has bad ideas. Bad ideas on Ukraine. Bad ideas on tariffs. And bad ideas on decarbonization.

More columns from Rick Smith: 

How to focus the fury for good

A new chapter begins for the Canadian climate change conversation

These should be the climate change priorities for Canada’s new government

As Canadians, because we are inundated with U.S. news on a minute-by-minute basis, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is still accelerating in the rest of the world. You can take your pick of good news: sales of electric vehicles continue to climb and will make up one out of every four cars sold worldwide this year, according to the International Energy Association. By 2030, that proportion is set to reach 40%, which will help shave off more than five million barrels of oil per day from global demand.

In China, wind and solar power have taken market share from coal in a big way. Over the past decade, coal electricity has fallen from nearly 75% of the market in 2015 to 54% this April. Wind and solar have skyrocketed by more than 20 points over that same period. China’s president insists the country will not slow down – it’s massively expanding its carbon market to include steel, cement and aluminum.

Add all of this up and it starts to paint a positive picture of opportunity and hope amidst the chaos of climate retrenchment that continues south of the border.

Rick Smith is president of the Canadian Climate Institute, the co-author of two bestselling books on the effects of pollution on human health, and the executive producer of Plastic People, a 2024 documentary chronicling the damage done by microplastics in the human body.

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Outside, temperatures can soar to plus 30°C, but the L+Snow resort, which opened in September 2024, is the world’s largest indoor ski resort. It’s an energy-intensive way of dealing with the climate crisis’s effect on winter sports, requiring 72 cooling machines and 33 snowmaking machines to maintain optimal winter conditions under a roof.

Could this be the future of skiing? Or rather, does skiing have a future at all in a world that’s being lashed  by climate change? It’s a major concern for resort operators, environmental researchers and, of course, winter sports enthusiasts witnessing rising temperatures and vanishing snow.

Last year, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, known as FIS, had to cancel 26 out of 616 World Cup races because of lack of snow and warm weather, prompting it to form a new partnership with the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to raise awareness that “winter sports and tourism face a bleak future because of climate change” unless more is done. In early 2023, 200 of the world’s top skiers sent a letter to FIS demanding more action on climate change, calling for a “geographically reasonable” race schedule with less intercontinental travel and a shift in the season to account for changing weather patterns.

“Climate change is, simply put, an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding. We would be remiss if we did not pursue every possible effort that is rooted in science and objective analysis,” FIS president Johan Eliasch said in a news release announcing the partnership in October.

According to WMO, global temperatures between January and September 2024 were 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average. “Ruined winter vacations and cancelled sports fixtures are – literally – the tip of the iceberg of climate change,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities and economies and will have increasingly serious repercussions at [the] local, national and global level for centuries to come.”

Ski resorts struggle to make up for lost snow

Around the world, ski resorts are scrambling to adapt. Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum holds its annual high-level talks about how the world is changing, is home to some of the planet’s best skiing and the longest-running series of high-altitude, day-by-day data on snow depth. The statistics show that since 1971, when the WEF first met in Davos, the area’s snowpack has thinned by more than 40%.

Davos and other areas have turned to snow farming – stockpiling natural snow when it falls to be moved to slopes and trails where the coverage would otherwise be too patchy. A 2023 study by French and Austrian scientists published in Nature Climate Change looked at 2,234 ski resorts in 28 European countries. The study found that without snowmaking, more than half of these resorts risk not having enough snow if global warming reaches 2°C – and nearly all will be wiped out if temperatures warm by 4°C.

It’s not enough for individual resorts to act alone. The power is in education, advocacy and combining our efforts.

– Geoff Buchheister, CEO, Aspen Skiing Company

Snowmaking can be of particular help to small mountains, in areas like Eastern Canada, where 76% of skiable terrain in Quebec and 95% in Ontario already have artificial facilities. But making snow is impractical at many larger sites such as B.C.’s Whistler Blackcomb, which has nearly 8,200 acres (3,300 hectares) to cover, says Daniel Scott, geography and environmental management professor at Ontario’s University of Waterloo. 

“There’s a cost for the water, the refrigeration and moving the snow,” says Scott, who is also executive director of the Waterloo Climate Institute and a board member of Protect Our Winters, a global organization that’s amassing research into the future of snow sports and how to conduct them more sustainably.

The climate pros and cons of snow-making

The great hurdle is reducing the planet-warming emissions involved in making all that snow. One study Scott conducted with colleagues in Innsbruck, Austria, found that the energy needed to produce artificial snow for resorts across Canada in one year equals the energy used by 17,000 homes, producing some 130,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases and using 43.4 million cubic metres of water.

Most of the water is returned to lakes, streams and the ground, but the energy required for all this snowmaking is about 478,000 megawatt hours. Scott says that the environmental impact of snowmaking can be lessened by improved technology, better water conservation and the conversion of electrical systems to renewable, lower- or zero-carbon grids. 

He adds that “snowmaking can actually help reduce total emissions from tourism when it enables millions of skiers to ski regionally instead of driving or flying to far-off ski resorts or selecting another type of carbon-intense holiday. Net-zero-compatible ski holidays are already possible in destinations like Quebec.” 

That said, smaller resorts tend to struggle with snowmaking costs, and only so much can be done when temperatures continue to hover above zero. Even a place like Ontario’s Blue Mountain, with a massive snowmaking system and access to Georgian Bay water, couldn’t open at Christmas in 2023 because of the weather.

How ski resorts are diversifying – and taking action on climate

Major resorts such Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico are going all out to lessen their carbon footprints, worrying about not only whether they can cover their slopes, but also how they can contribute less to the climate emergency that’s causing the snow decline. 

“We’re North America’s only certified B Corp ski resort,” says Dawn Boulware, vice president of environmental and social responsibility at Taos Ski Valley. (In France, the Les Arcs/Peisey-Vallandry area was certified in 2023.) This is the certification given by non-profit B Lab for companies committed to environmental stewardship and social responsibility. 

“We became carbon-neutral in 2022, we’ve electrified or are electrifying all our on-mountain buildings, use 100% solar energy in daytime and are testing an electric-powered snowcat groomer,” Boulware says. 

RELATED

The war of words over climate change

Six reasons why Trump’s presidency isn’t the end of the world for climate change

How climate change is rocking the wine industry

Even with snowmaking, the prospect of ski-free winters looms large.

“There is a basic playbook for how ski resorts continue in a warming world,” says Auden Schendler, senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen One in Colorado, which operates four mountains: Snowmass, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk. Beyond increasing their snowmaking and water storage sustainably, he says that resorts need to “diversify into summer activities like mountain biking and hiking and offer winter activities beyond skiing,” he explains in an email interview.

Resorts of all sizes are taking measures to attract non-skiers year-round, adding attractions like luxury spas and promoting sales of pay-in-advance annual passes, to secure money up front no matter what the season is like. 

Knowing they face an uphill battle, Aspen One’s leaders are going beyond reducing the company’s footprint and using their lobbying power to push governments to take action against the very emissions that are putting their industry at risk. “We started lobbying Washington for climate action in 2004,” Schendler says. “We installed the first solar power array in the ski industry.” Aspen One also built the first electricity plant in the United States to run on biogas waste methane (that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere). 

“We need to fight the larger political battles. Our lobbying paved the way for huge supplies of renewables in Colorado today,” Schendler says. The resort’s parent Aspen Skiing Company is outspoken against actions it considers to be greenwashing, such as carbon offsets, and it produces a detailed annual sustainability report that it hopes will inspire others in the ski industry and the larger corporate world. 

“It’s not enough for individual resorts to act alone. The power is in education, advocacy and combining our efforts,” says Geoff Buchheister, chief executive officer of Aspen Skiing Company.

“Skiing does have a future – if we take action together.”

David Israelson is a writer, non-practising lawyer and communications consultant in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

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The bad news was not slow in coming: he invented a “national energy emergency” to crank up U.S. fossil fuel production, already the highest in the world; pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement; blocked new offshore wind; froze some funding for the Inflation Reduction Act; and eliminated support – real or imagined – for electric vehicles.

But there’s a bigger picture to Trump’s presidency, and more progress on climate mitigation and adaptation than he can hope to obstruct. The next four years will hurt the United States’ competitiveness in the global energy transition, but here are six reasons why the green shift won’t be stopped.

1. Clean energy investments keep surging past fossil fuels

Despite worries that clean energy deployment was faltering, solar and EVs are surging around the globe, led by gangbusters growth in China. The International Energy Agency says that “the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels,” hitting US$2 trillion. As two climate-risk profs from Australia put it, “This is a historic mega-trend and will continue with or without American leadership.”

2. Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ approach is a double-edged sword

As The New York Times points out, the U.S. president may have promised to “make it easier to build energy infrastructure and secure drilling leases. But higher production could hurt prices and profits.” Trump’s push to lower the price of oil doesn’t just eat into oil company profits; it makes it less likely that oil companies will want to pony up to extract expensive bitumen in regions like Alberta’s oil sands.

3. Biden’s green-economy agenda will keep giving

Republicans may have tried to block the Inflation Reduction Act when they were in opposition, but with 85% of IRA financing in red districts, word on Capitol Hill is that Trump won’t have enough support to repeal Biden’s legacy bill. Either way, Biden already awarded more than US$100 billion to climate projects and the impact of those investments will come to fruition after he’s gone, as battery factories and charging stations, et cetera, come online.

4. Cities and states will once again lead on climate

It’s happened before, it will happen again. States and cities step into leadership roles on climate when hostile governments take over. California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, is already fixing to fight Trump on environmental rollbacks, and the red state of Texas just so happens to have more wind and solar power at the utility level than any other state. In fact, 50% of states, plus D.C., have renewable-energy requirements in place.  

5. More companies than ever have science-based targets

Yes, some high-profile corporations such as Amazon, Walmart and Microsoft recently scaled back some commitments made to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the framework set up to help companies reduce emissions by 42% by 2030, as they struggle to lower emissions. But by the end of 2023, four Georgia Tech profs note, “7,929 companies representing 39% of global market capitalization had committed to set targets, and 4,205 had targets already validated by SBTi.” The number with strong 2030 targets has since grown to 7,171.

6. More investors want real data on climate risks

Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission responded to demand from investors by requiring public companies to disclose their exposure to climate risks. Whatever their perspective on decarbonization, investors want accurate forecasts of the financial impacts of climate change. The rule is being challenged and Trump could rescind it, but he’d be going against Wall Street’s wishes. 

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The weather was bound to be bad in 2024, the hottest year on Earth out of the last 125,000 of them.

In Saudi Arabia, temperatures climbed above 125°F during the hajj in June, killing 1,300 people on their annual pilgrimage to the city of Mecca. Across the Arabian Sea, a prolonged heat wave led to hundreds more deaths in southern Pakistan. Hurricane Helene brought 30 inches of rain to an already-waterlogged western North Carolina in September, filling mountain valleys with mudslides and floods that surged through homes in one of the most destructive hurricanes in recent memory. Then, in November, a year’s worth of rain fell on Valencia and across eastern Spain in just eight hours. The floodwaters swept through towns, and flash flood alerts came too late for people already on the road or trapped in garages underground.

As climate change intensifies extreme weather in multiple ways, the kind of push alerts that popped up on phones around Valencia are arriving more and more often. But overwhelm people with too many warnings about heat or flooding or bad air quality and they might start tuning them out, a phenomenon called alert fatigue that’s been troubling emergency managers. “It may be one of the biggest problems facing their field as climate disasters mount,” journalist Zoë Schlanger wrote in The Atlantic this summer.

The phrase comes from medicine, where overworked doctors blasted with hundreds of medical alerts every day got so many false alarms they learned to ignore them. Alert fatigue could also describe the dynamic of becoming numb to warnings about climate change more broadly. Since the late 1980s, scientists have been raising the alarm about the devastation that global warming would bring. Nearly two-thirds of Americans now understand that climate change is affecting their local communities, and yet they reelected Donald Trump, who has promised to boost fossil fuel production and undo much of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.

It’s a paradox emblematic of an especially turbulent, anxiety-filled time. As 2024 draws to a close, dictionary editors have been sifting through the lexicon to choose a term that encapsulates the spirit of the previous months, with this year’s selections including “brat” and “brain rot.” For us, alert fatigue stood out as the winner in a year in which severe weather – and the accompanying push alerts – added to the chaos. The runners-up, from “climate homicide” to “underconsumption core,” captured other aspects of what it was like to live on our overheating planet in 2024.

Anti-tourism

The opposition to masses of vacationers taking over your town.

Thousands of locals took to the streets across southern Europe this year, calling for tourists to go home. These anti-tourism protests started in Spain’s Canary Islands this spring and from there spread to Barcelona, Majorca and Málaga, then to Venice, Italy and Lisbon. Residents argued that their governments, during a post-COVID travel boom, had started catering to visitors rather than to locals, turning their towns into theme parks and straining natural resources. Environmental groups like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund supported them. Tourism is responsible for about 8% of global carbon emissions, thanks in large part to the emissions involved with flying. Protesters aren’t calling for an end to all tourism (which plays an important role in their local economies), but for a more sustainable, limited version that allows them to reclaim the souls of their cities.

Carbon cowboys

Those seeking to profit off the carbon-storing potential of other people’s lands.

Companies have been buying carbon offsets for years, paying to protect, say, a forest to claim they’ve cancelled out the greenhouse gases they emit. Yet carbon-offset markets have been riddled with false promises and a lack of oversight, earning comparisons to the Wild West. The metaphor has extended to calling the companies involved in these schemes carbon cowboys. This year, investigations of lucrative conservation projects in Zimbabwe and the Amazon found that companies were failing to distribute money to the locals who were supposed to be rewarded, profiting off lands they often had no right to. “The system is very gameable,” Joseph Romm, a climate researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Washington Post. “And the victim is the planet, and all of humanity who suffers because we’re not reducing emissions, but get to pretend we are.”

Category 6

A not-yet-official classification for ultra-powerful hurricanes.

Category 5 has been synonymous with the scariest storms for decades. But as hurricanes have started to intensify more rapidly, some scientists have been making the case for expanding the Saffir-Simpson scale to include even scarier ones, creating a new category for storms with winds that top 192 miles per hour. A paper published earlier this year found that at least five storms had already passed the test for the Category 6 label, the strongest of which was Hurricane Patricia, which slammed into Mexico’s Pacific Coast in 2015 with winds peaking at 215 miles per hour. Tropical storms are fuelled by warm waters, meaning that as climate change warms the atmosphere and oceans, more and more powerful storms could be headed our way. One objection some experts have with creating a Category 6 is that it might double down on what’s already the biggest communication problem with hurricanes: flooding, not wind speed, is the deadliest risk of these storms.

Climate homicide

A new legal theory proposing that oil companies could be guilty of actual murder.

Climate change has killed roughly four million people since the year 2000, by one estimate. Some legal scholars are now making the case that oil companies like ExxonMobil, which have long understood that burning fossil fuels could have lethal consequences, could be charged with every type of homicide in the United States, except for first-degree murder. In a paper in Harvard Environmental Law Review this spring, David Arkush, the director of the climate program for the advocacy group Public Citizen, and Donald Braman, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote that fossil fuel companies have been “killing members of the public at an accelerating rate.” While it’s unusual for criminal law cases to be brought against corporations instead of individuals, climate homicide could open up a new flank for fighting climate change in court. It has already gotten attention from law schools at Yale, New York University and Vermont Law School, along with district attorneys’ offices around the country.

Hot droughts

When extreme heat and drought happen at the same time

Combine a stretch of scarce rainfall with rising temperatures and you get what’s known as a hot drought – a double whammy of dry conditions, because heat enhances evaporation. According to a study published in the journal Science Advances in January, hot droughts have become more frequent and severe across the western United States, which is enduring its driest period since the 1500s. The Great Plains and parts of the Colorado River Basin are the most affected, the study found, with consequences for ecosystems, farming and city planning. “It is clear that anthropogenic drying has only just begun,” the study’s authors wrote.

Semi-dystopian

A term to describe a future that’s nearly as bad as some authors have imagined.

In May, The Guardian released the results of a survey that hundreds of climate scientists had participated in, showing that almost half of them thought greenhouse gas emissions would push the world at least 3°C (5.4°F) hotter than the preindustrial era by the end of this century. “I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South,” one South African scientist, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Guardian. Ecological catastrophe has long been in the backdrop of dystopian fiction, like Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a 1993 novel set in a future California replete with raging infernos, scarce water and mass migration to more fertile lands. These days, what once sounded outlandish is looking more and more like reality – as climate fiction authors themselves are beginning to admit.

Snow-loss cliff

The point at which snowpack begins to disappear at an accelerating pace.

About two billion people in the Northern Hemisphere rely on snowmelt as a source of water. As winters warm, however, parts of the United States and Europe are close to a tipping point that could lead to a disastrous loss of snow, according to a study published in Nature in January. This snow-loss cliff sits at the point where the average winter temperature hovers around 17°F. Any warmer than that and snowpack loss begins accelerating irreversibly. While most of the Northern Hemisphere’s snow is in the far north and safe for now, millions of people live in places that have already crossed the temperature cliff. Regions like the western United States are on track to see a sharp decline in snowpack – further straining a region already struggling with drought.

Supercommuter

Someone who travels a very, very long distance to get to work.

The news site Fast Company did some back-of-the-napkin math and calculated that Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s supercommute would emit 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, equivalent to the annual energy use of 118 homes. He’s not the only supercommuter out there, with some people flying to high-paying jobs in New York City from places with lower housing costs, like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Columbus, Ohio. Long driving commutes also have a significant climate cost, with so-called gasoline superusers, the 10% of drivers who use the most fuel, guzzling more than a third of the country’s gas. Even though data suggest that working remotely instead of in an office can halve a person’s carbon footprint, businesses have been going in the opposite direction, forcing employees back to the office.

Underconsumption core

A social media trend with a new take on minimalism.

Behind the funny cat videos and chaotic cooking fails on TikTok, there’s a whole ecosystem of ads designed to make you spend money. In 2023, the push against out-of-control consumerism brought “deinfluencing.” In 2024, it morphed into even more of a mouthful: underconsumption core. The budget-friendly trend emphasizes buying only what you need and celebrating the old tank top or water bottle you’ve treasured since skinny jeans were the thing. (“Yes, being normal is now trending,” The New York Times quipped.) It’s a rejection of fast fashion, which has turned into a mounting climate and pollution problem. Well over half of Gen Z and millennial adults surveyed by Deloitte this year reported either avoiding fast fashion or wanting to do so in the future. Underconsumption core, TikToker Jade Taylor told Grist last month, is “a response to the type of normalized overconsumption that influencers have pushed with their marketing, but also due to climate anxiety and economic instability.”

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There was a lot to choose from – something that may not be immediately apparent in the aftermath of the U.S. election and news that 2024 will almost certainly be the hottest on record.   

But it’s true: Canada and the world made enormous strides addressing climate change and building a cleaner economy. Here are the top 10 stories from 2024:  

Electric vehicle sales in Canada continued to rise 

You may not know it from news coverage, but sales of electric vehicles in Canada are at their highest level ever. And they keep rising: market share for EVs in Canada has roughly tripled over the past three years, with the latest quarterly data showing sales at 16.5% nationally. In fact, gas vehicle sales in Canada peaked in 2017 and have been falling ever since.  

The question ahead is one of pace, with Quebec rapidly taking the North American crown for EV adoption. More than one in three vehicle sales in la belle province were electric last quarter –substantially higher than runner-up California.  

Globally, it was the same story: EVs rising  

The trend is even more pronounced globally, where EV sales are set for another record year. A big part of the story is China – the world’s largest auto-market – where the latest data show EVs taking more than half the market. That has contributed to a peak in oil consumption in the country last year, according to the latest official estimates. 

Taken together, the rise of EVs is expected to cut global oil demand by six million barrels per day by 2030, according to the International Energy Association (IEA). 

Peak fossil fuels by 2030

On a related note: the IEA projected that global demand for fossil fuels will peak before 2030, thanks largely to the rapid electrification of the economy. Other forecasts, including those from oil and gas companies, have come to a similar conclusion. Global declines in the demand for fossil fuels will have important implications for Canada and the long-term competitiveness of the oil and gas sector.  

Clean electricity continued to soar 

As fossil fuels decline, they’re quickly being replaced by an age of clean electricity. The IEA expects roughly $2 trillion in clean energy investments in 2024, nearly double the amount invested in fossil fuels. More than 40% of electricity worldwide was non-emitting in 2023, and more than 90% of the growth in net power capacity came from wind and solar. 

Provinces and territories made big moves on clean electricity 

In Canada, we saw big progress on clean electricity across the country, despite some more high-profile disputes. Ontario is ramping up electrification with a goal to become a clean energy superpower. Hydro-Québec is investing up to $185 billion over the next decade to expand clean energy and electrify the province. Quebec inked a deal with Newfoundland and Labrador last week that would see a massive amount of new clean electricity come online in future years. British Columbia is charging ahead with enough new wind projects to increase power supply by 8% – with more to come in future years. The federal government recently committed up to $1 billion in Indigenous-led wind power in New Brunswick, on top of other clean energy investments. And in Saskatchewan, the federal government is investing more than $265 million in clean electricity, including Indigenous-led renewable projects.  

The cost of clean energy continued to drop

The cost of clean energy continued to drop worldwide, especially in solar and battery technologies. In the first half of this year alone, for example, solar photovoltaic prices dropped 20%, according to the IEA. Solar module prices were cut in half over the past year. And grid-scale battery storage prices declined by nearly 10%.  

That can’t help but have positive impacts on affordability here at home. On that front, new research released this year showed that the transition to clean electricity can save people money: most households in Canada can expect to save up to $1,100 each year by switching to more efficient technologies such as EVs and heat pumps by mid-century. That echoes earlier research from the Canadian Climate Institute that found that the switch off fossil fuels can save people money on energy costs over time.  

Indigenous nations led on clean energy 

Indigenous Peoples continued to lead the way on climate and clean energy in 2024. The Oneida battery storage plant – the largest facility of its kind in the country and a 50/50 partnership with the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario – is set to power up next summer. Likewise, an energy storage project led by the Malahat First Nation on Vancouver Island will produce enough battery power for tens of thousands of homes and support hundreds of local jobs. Indigenous Peoples are partners or beneficiaries in nearly one-fifth of Canada’s electricity generation – and almost all of that is renewables.   

This year also brought important new policy research on an Indigenous electrification strategy, Indigenous participation in clean energy, and Indigenous housing and clean technologies.  

Canada has made progress cutting emissions 

The latest estimates from the Canadian Climate Institute show that Canada’s emissions saw a modest drop in 2023 and now sit around 8% below where they were in 2005. Climate policies are working – with industrial carbon pricing leading the pack. Canada’s emissions would be higher today without the actions taken to date by all levels of government since 2015. By 2030, existing climate policies are expected to prevent 226 megatons of emissions – the same amount as current emissions from Quebec and Ontario combined. But getting closer to Canada’s emission targets still requires more action. Governments can deliver even deeper emission cuts by following through and finalizing developing and announced policies.  

Big progress electrifying buildings 

This year also saw Quebec committing to 100% renewable energy to heat all buildings, except in the industrial sector, which will mean a big transition away from fossil fuels to highly efficient electric heat pumps. This type of planned transition in the building sector is necessary to protect consumers from higher costs and stranded assets. Likewise, Vancouver avoided a reversal of its nation-leading rules that effectively banned gas for heating most buildings.    

Oil and gas sector makes progress cutting methane 

Emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector remain a critical challenge for climate policy, making up more than 30% of national emissions. But one area that has seen progress is methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. Cutting methane is a no-brainer and widely considered to be the cheapest and easiest way to slash emissions from the sector. This fall, British Columbia announced it had already cut methane emissions in half from the sector, exceeding its mandated 2025 target, and Alberta has done the same. The federal government has drafted regulations that would reduce oil and gas methane 75% by 2030. There are important caveats, with recent research finding higher estimates of methane than previously thought, but progress has generally been encouraging.    

Taken together, it’s been a year of surprisingly good news in the realm of climate and clean energy. That’s not to diminish the challenges ahead – but let’s not lose sight of the progress that’s been made. And let’s redouble our efforts in 2025. 

Rick Smith is president of the Canadian Climate Institute. 

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Under the 2021 Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, Ottawa must publish targets for 2035 by December 1, and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has confirmed that the government will release the proposed targets on schedule. Signatory nations of the Paris Agreement, including Canada, are also expected to announce their 2035 targets at next month’s Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB) – a group appointed by Guilbeault to help the government find a credible path to net-zero – is proposing that Ottawa set a 2035 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 50% and 55% below 2005 levels, a 10% increase from the current federal target for 2030. Under the Paris climate agreement, countries are expected to ratchet up their targets every five years.

Armed with analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute, NZAB says its proposed reductions are both feasible and affordable. While Canada has made “significant progress” on climate action since signing the Paris treaty in 2015, NZAB co-chair Simon Donner writes in the report, “more aggressive and sustained action is necessary to reach our 2030 emissions targets and to shift to a long-term net-zero pathway.”

The government acknowledges the need for more action to achieve its 2030 goals, let alone to meet its pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2050. However, provinces are balking at tougher measures, and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is preparing to fight the next election – expected within the year – on killing the Liberals’ carbon tax.

NZAB also recommends that the federal government establish a maximum cumulative emissions level for the period between now and 2050. This “carbon budget” approach would reflect the country’s ongoing progress better than annual targets, it says. 

The advisory body also notes that the targets and budget are net figures. While emission reductions must be the primary focus, Canada can also rely on “negative” emission approaches, including nature-based solutions and purchasing credits from other nations.

The battle over what counts as realistic reduction targets

Some energy analysts question NZAB’s confidence in the feasibility and affordability of its proposed 2035 targets, given the hurdles to implementing the fundamental economic changes that are needed to meet the targets: lack of clear and consistent government policy, lack of capital and a skilled workforce, supply chain challenges in building a clean energy infrastructure, and the political price of adding short-term costs to consumers.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s a big and growing disconnect between the pace of emissions reductions dictated by climate science and the pace of emissions reductions that’s possible when you look through the lens of social sciences,” says Monica Gattinger, director of the Positive Energy program at the University of Ottawa.

Canada’s ability to reduce emissions is limited by how well it can address the connected implementation challenges, Gattinger says. 

“The target needs to be ambitious, but we need to understand how we get there,” says Guilbeault. “I am not a big fan of setting targets where we have no idea how to get there. I think it is counterproductive and discourages people.”

Climate Action Network (CAN), an umbrella group of civil society organizations, argues that the government should aim for a 60% reduction from 2019 levels. The more ambitious target represents a fairer share of Canada’s contribution to the problem as a large emitter, says CAN executive director Caroline Brouillette, speaking in a phone interview. “If Canada doesn’t do its fair share in the global effort to keep us at 1.5 degree, who is going to?” she asks.

But setting more ambitious targets would escalate the political fight that is expected to take centre stage in the next election.

Provincial governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan have been waging a war against Ottawa’s proposed emissions cap for the oil and gas industry, which was promised in the 2021 election by the Liberals but has yet to be finalized.

Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) in Alberta has launched a national advertising campaign denouncing the emissions cap as a de facto limit on production, which the Liberals deny. In 2023, the UCP laid out a climate plan that claims to set “realistic aspirations” of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. However, Smith’s government has not set any pathway with targets to keep them on track and has virtually shut down new construction in the renewable-power sector. 

“A sober assessment is that Alberta is not serious about any meaningful reductions in GHG emissions,” says Martin Olszynski, an environmental law professor at the University of Calgary.

At the UCP convention in November, members will vote on whether carbon dioxide should be considered a pollutant or the “foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”  

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the federal carbon levy in 2021. The majority ruled that “climate change is real” and that “it is caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities and it poses a grave threat to humanity’s future.”

Ontario is also offside with the federal approach, notably Ottawa’s planned net-zero electricity regulations, which would require provincial grids to be carbon-neutral by 2035. The province’s Independent Electricity System Operator has recommended that the province plan for continued use of natural gas for power in order to keep prices down as renewables and nuclear ramp up.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives under Premier Doug Ford jettisoned the more ambitious GHG targets set by the previous Liberal government and aim to reduce emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 – Canada’s original Paris commitment. The Trudeau government, along with other countries, subsequently increased its ambition for 2030, as required by the Paris Agreement.

A spokesman for Environment Minister Andrea Khanjin said that Ontario is focused on its 2030 target and has introduced climate initiatives such as electrification of energy-intensive industrial plants, a clean energy grid and support for the electric vehicle industry.

In October, Ontario lost an appeal of a lawsuit brought by seven young plaintiffs, who argue the province has violated their Charter rights by weakening the climate target and thereby causing harm to  youth and future generations. 

Ontario’s Superior Court reinstated the case after a lower court judge rejected it, and it now must go to trial.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misattributed the recommendation for Ontario to continue using natural gas.

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When Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland took the main stage to announce long-anticipated policy measures, expectations were high. New financial rules are desperately needed, as Canada is already listed by the United Nations as a “low-regulation jurisdiction” on sustainable finance while providing cover for financial institutions with the highest levels of financing for oil, gas and coal.

What we heard was a welcome, yet inadequate, attempt to draw level with global climate finance leaders.

The speech – accompanied by an official backgrounder on the new sustainable investing guidelines – included two main themes: progress on a green labelling taxonomy and movement to formalize corporate climate disclosures for major companies in federal law. These are important and positive steps, but they amount to meeting the basic standard, not climate leadership.

The first piece provides a path for finally rolling out a voluntary, made-in-Canada sustainable investment taxonomy, focused on setting detailed science-aligned climate labelling standards for electricity, transportation, buildings, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and extractive industries, including mineral extraction and processing and natural gas.

That last category raises a major red flag for climate experts, as scientifically credible transition pathways require, by definition, the replacement of fossil fuels in our energy system, not merely marginal emission reductions. Gas cannot be transitioned.

The long, difficult process to develop taxonomy rules has been continually undermined by aggressive oil and gas industry lobbying to distort the rules to keep the finance taps open. Canada might have simply adopted EU taxonomy rules, which exclude most fossil fuel activities. This threat sparked an industry push to create a made-in-Canada approach, on the flawed premise that a pathway for science-based 1.5°C alignment could somehow be changed in consideration of “Canada’s economic makeup.”

This distortion of reality is very much in evidence in the backgrounder, albeit in coded terms. The text describes “a broad range of eligibility criteria for existing natural gas production,” so long as companies align with “limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

The government provides an example of such an eligibility criterion: “displacing more polluting fuels internationally.” This is just an oblique and perverse reference to industry attempts to force the exporting of liquefied natural gas into the transition label against the advice of experts.

Natural gas is a major cause of the climate crisis and cannot, regardless of Canada’s current economic makeup, align with limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C on any reasonable time scale. LNG export is an expansion of fossil fuels – the literal opposite of a transition investment.

The backgrounder also contained an important acknowledgement that new oil or gas projects are inconsistent with a safe climate. Clearly, given the contradictions on display, the hard work on labelling is not over.

Ensuring that these rules earn global credibility and adhere to climate science in a politicized environment will require committed follow-through. The next step in the process is for detailed labels to be ironed out by an independent stakeholder working group over 12 months, the makeup of which has yet to be announced.

Canada needs these labelling rules, and many well-intentioned people have worked hard for years to make them a reality. The government must deliver on promises to ensure that civil-society representatives, climate experts and Indigenous rights-holders are all part of the decision-making process.

At the event, the government also promised to codify climate disclosure rules for Canada’s largest federally regulated corporations. This is an equally important, but also incomplete, policy.

Once adopted, these disclosure rules will form a foundation for future rules to require credible climate transition plans across the financial sector, but a clear policy direction for where we need to end up is still lacking. The EU is already much further ahead with such policies, like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

Aligning Canada’s financial sector with a science-based climate transition pathway isn’t optional. The work to achieve this necessary calibration needs to pick up the pace. The international community wants to see Canada leading, not catching up.

Adam Scott is the executive director of Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, a charitable project working to align Canada’s financial sector with climate goals.

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Evolved over thousands of years and cultures, wine is something we all take for granted. But that is all about to change.

Recent publications on climate volatility have painted a bleak picture of the future for this beloved alcoholic beverage.

It is now clear that global warming is affecting most of the crops that are essential to feed the world. Climate change is impacting the production of both staple food crops like wheat, rice and corn and also commodity crops including coffee, cocoa and grapes.

Most of the world’s vineyards, including its most venerable names, are facing incredible existential challenges that pose essential risks to their very survival if they don’t adapt to the changing environmental conditions. Canadian wine is by no means exempt from these changes.

Signs of things to come

In January 2024, the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia experienced a devastating cold snap, with temperatures plummeting below minus 20 C. This unprecedented climatic event inflicted severe damage to all the grapevines in the region and could result in a 97 to 99 per cent decrease in annual grape and wine production across the region — with projected revenue losses over the next few years in the $440 to $445 million range.

It is still too early in the season to assess the full extent of the damage and, while many vines will need replacement, there is still hope that with careful management some vines will bounce back within a few years.

The Okanagan cold snap is merely the latest climate change-induced climatic event to rock the Canadian and global wine industry in recent years.

Drought conditions, heat waves and smoke from forest fires have heavily impacted grape yields and resulted in variations in wine quality across regions. The cumulative effect of these climate-related events underscores the undeniable influence that climate change is already having on wine production and quality.

The viticulture industry must confront and adapt to these challenges to ensure its sustainability and resilience in the face of ongoing environmental changes.

The future of wineries

In order to adapt, the wine industry will need to embrace new production methods and technologies while promoting collaboration between researchers and growers.

Agriculture technologies — ranging from precision viticulture tools to high-resolution spatial information and AI — offer invaluable insights into vineyard management, grape quality optimization and environmental practices.

Providing more support to viticulturists can help incentivize sustainable farming practices and eco-labelling. At the same time, providing access to resources and education can significantly enhance the industry’s resilience and sustainability over the long term.

Meanwhile, forward-thinking new policies could encourage research and development in areas like climate change adaptation, disease management and alternative grape varieties more suitable for changing environmental conditions. Policymakers should promote the adoption of renewable energy sources and more climate-resilient approaches to the vines and the soil.

Canadian governments should provide financial incentives and support the wine industry’s transition to a more sustainable future. The recently announced $177 million, three-year extension to the federal government’s Wine Sector Support Program is a good start.

Climate change not entirely to blame

Grapevines are often cultivated in areas that are incredibly vulnerable to changes in climate and while global warming is the greatest challenge the wine industry faces, it is not the only one.

The last 20 years have seen a significant drop in wine consumption as changing lifestyles, price hikes and health concerns push consumers — particularly young people — to cut back on alcohol. When people do indulge in wine, they are increasingly splurging on pricier bottles, choosing quality over quantity.

Data shows that Gen Z is sipping far less alcohol (around 20 per cent less) than previous generations and more young people than ever are jumping on the no or low alcohol “NoLo” movement.

China, long a major wine market, has so far seen a 25 per cent drop in wine sales in 2024 as rising prices and economic slowdown has left fewer glasses clinking than ever. Simply put, the wine world is experiencing a sobering moment.

Turning challenge into opportunity

Wine is one of life’s great pleasures and an intrinsic part of human cultures — likely almost as old as civilization itself.

For those of us who drink wine, it is imperative that we try to be mindful of how we can all support our local viticulture industry in these challenging times.

As consumers, our role is pivotal in supporting resilience. Actions ranging from embracing local products, visiting vineyards, buying new wines crafted from climate-resilient varieties and staying informed about the challenges confronting the winery sector all can contribute to a brighter future for the industry.

We need to believe that the Canadian wine industry can not only adapt to change but can also thrive by producing great wines and developing the wine tourism that will educate consumers about the tradition and cultural heritage of Canadian wine making.

While global warming news can often seem all doom-and-gloom there remains a ray of hope. Using adaptation strategies and embracing agritech innovation, we can mitigate the impacts of climate change as much as possible. This adversity could catalyze a heightened focus on sustainability, adaptation and innovation within the viticulture sector. That, if nothing else, would be a positive outcome.

Laila Benkrima is agronomy consultant, at the B.C. Centre for Agritech Innovation, at Simon Fraser University. 

This article was first published by The Conversation. Read the original story here. 

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