B.C. climate news: NOAA says El Niño expected to grow to 'historic strength' | Climate scientists say 2025 reached 1.37 C above pre-industrial levels

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Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet, causing climate change. Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years, according to NASA.

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Latest News

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Source: NOAA.

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The NOAA says El Niño expected to grow to ‘historic strength’

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El Niño — a climate cycle that causes unusually warm ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, altering global weather patterns — has begun and is expected to grow to historical strength, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this week.

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The NOAA also issued an El Niño advisory, saying there’s a 63 per cent chance of sea surface temperatures exceeding 2 C in the Pacific. If this threshold is surpassed, the NOAA considers the event a “very strong” El Niño.

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El Niño tends to be strongest during the winter months, and its global impacts are typically most significant in the Northern Hemisphere winter, the agency said.

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During an El Niño winter, the jet stream over the north Pacific Ocean tends to shift southward and cause a warmer than usual winter in the Pacific Northwest.

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On the West Coast, there’s a higher risk of coastal flooding and the formation of harmful algae blooms, the NOAA said.

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Meteorologists told the Associated Press that it will likely rival a record El Niño that began in 1997, leading to billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods and drought.

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—Tiffany Crawford

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File photo of a flood in Brazil experts attributed to climate change and the El Niño weather phenomenon. In 2026, a strong El Nino phenomenon is expected to increase the risk of extreme weather events, the World Meteorological Organization said. Photo by NELSON ALMEIDA /AFP via Getty Images

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Calgary first Canadian city to rescind climate emergency declaration

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Calgary is no longer in a climate emergency, according to city council.

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Council voted 10-5 a couple of weeks ago to repeal the climate emergency declaration the previous council led by then mayor Jyotia Gondek passed in November 2021 as one of its first orders of business.

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Wednesday’s vote was in response to two notices of motion, from councillors Landon Johnston and Andre Chabot, who argued the declaration was purely symbolic and has not helped the city leverage additional funding to support climate initiatives.

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Calgary is the first major Canadian city to rescind its climate emergency declaration. According to a city official, more than 600 municipalities across the country have passed similar declarations.

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—Calgary Herald

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A standing ovation for former federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault. A call for a national windfall tax on oil companies. In Alberta.

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These were all part of Thursday’s keynote address at the Elbows Up for Climate conference at Edmonton’s Art Gallery of Alberta.

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Elbows Up for Climate is a collection of more than 300 mayors and municipal councillors from across Canada, pushing for action on the environment.

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John Vaillant, author of the bestselling Fire Weather, noted the irony of Guilbeault, who had been the bane of the Alberta government during his time as the federal environment minister, being saluted by hundreds of municipal politicians only a short walk from the provincial legislature.

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—Edmonton Journal

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File photo of a man during a heat wave. Photo by TERCIO TEIXEIRA /AFP via Getty Images

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Human activities pushed global warming to 1.37 C in 2025: climate scientists

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Human activities pushed global warming to 1.37 C above pre-industrial times in 2025, and its level is projected to surpass 1.5 C in about four years, climate scientists with the Copernicus Climate Change Service warned this week.

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Some of the key findings from the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change report are that global greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high and that 2025 was the third warmest year on record.