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CBC
4 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
Toronto's getting hotter. Experts say a chief heat officer could help the city adapt
Social Sharing As Toronto braces for another hotter than usual summer, some climate policy experts and advocates say a chief heat officer could help the city adapt to extreme temperatures faster. Municipalities around the world are appointing a central person to lead heat resilience teams, which are task forces responsible for developing and overseeing heat management and adaptation solutions. Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Athens and Melbourne are among the cities that already have a chief heat officer, says Caroline Metz, managing director of climate resilience and health at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo. "Cities are prioritizing heat as a threat," she told CBC Toronto. "They're investing in a more climate resilient future, looking to protect health and wellness, and reduce losses — loss of lives, loss of livelihoods." Toronto summers may not hit the same high temperature as Miami, but climate change is heating up the city fast. A report by the Climate Resilience and Health at the Intact Centre found that Toronto could experience up to 55 days of temperatures above 30 C by 2051. That's up from the current 12 days of extra hot weather and doesn't factor in the urban heat island effect within cities, meaning the way concrete, asphalt and other dark materials intensify heat. Plus, days are already getting hotter. There's an 80 per cent probability that the next three months in Toronto are on track to be hotter than in past years, according to national temperature forecasts. Designating a single entity to take care of heat management would "break down the silos" and co-ordinate communities, government agencies and the private sector, Metz said, even in a city like Toronto, which is considered a leader on climate issues. WATCH | Projections show frequency of extreme heat events will grow: Canadians must prepare better for future extreme heat events, report warns 3 years ago Duration 2:23 Researchers with the University of Waterloo published a new report warning that Canadians must act now to adapt to climate change, as projections show a future filled with extreme heat events. "Heat is one of the most challenging climate hazards," she said. "We've got to think about this in terms of how it affects people, their health, how they live and work." In an email, Los Angeles' Chief Heat Officer Marta Segura told CBC Toronto that her office's main focus is to create the city's first heat action resilience plan and that they work "behind the scenes" to provide greater accountability and support across all departments addressing extreme heat awareness. "These efforts help to cool the city, fostering social cohesion and community well-being," she said. Toronto behind on building resilience, advocate says Right now in Toronto, 15 different municipal departments and agencies play a role in heat management, including Toronto Public Health, Toronto Emergency Management, Environment, Climate and Forestry, as well as Shelter and Support Services, according to the city's heat relief strategy. The document outlines tools and programs geared at keeping residents safe, including cooling centres, street outreach and public messaging. Other initiatives include the city's recently launched air conditioner assistance program pilot project for low-income seniors and efforts to expand tree canopy coverage. Still, Toronto is behind on heat adaptation, says Lyn Adamson, co-chair of the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign. "Heat is really that big of an issue," Adamson said, recalling the heat dome over Vancouver in 2021 that resulted in the deaths of over 600 people, most of them seniors who were living alone. "That was a lack of preparation and it took Vancouver by surprise — it should not take any other city by surprise," she said. A spokesperson for the city manager's office said in an email that the heat relief strategy doesn't include plans to hire a chief heat officer. A way to validate problem and track data Toronto did have a chief resilience officer not long ago — a position funded from 2017 to 2019 by a donation from the Rockefeller Foundation. It led to the city's first resilience strategy, aimed at addressing climate change and poverty. That strategy notes that many low-income Torontonians live in older apartment towers in dire need of retrofit repairs to deal with extreme weather. Appointing a chief heat officer would restore the city's commitment to adaptation and finally give heat management the profile and validity it needs, Adamson says. "This is a health protection measure that we need to take," she said. Another benefit of the position would be better data collection, says Warren Mabee, director of the Queen's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen's University. "We don't have good data on how many people are actually being affected by heat. We don't have good data on workplace accidents," he said. "Pulling together that data and analyzing that data is a full time job and somebody needs to take that on." However, a single leadership position wouldn't be enough by itself, says Emmay Mah, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. "We really need multiple dedicated positions and resources across divisions. We know that the city is working on it," she said. "It in terms of having a senior position ... it can't be a ceremonial thing. It's really a matter of life and death for some residents."
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Tries to Make Sure States Don't Fight Climate Change Either
If you're one of those gambling addicts placing bets on every imaginable future scenario that could befall this nation, and you've bet on it facing a maximum climate catastrophe, you've got a friend in the Trump administration. When President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, climate advocates were confident that while the federal government would certainly no longer be tackling the issue of climate change, states would help pick up some of the slack. There was a sense of hope in that — at least some of this vital work would continue. This prospect has recently been put into question, because the Trump administration is now trying to prevent states from doing much of anything to limit the impacts of climate change. The Department of Justice is currently suing the states of New York and Vermont to stop them from enforcing laws passed last year that would make fossil fuel companies liable for some of the costs of dealing with climate change. It is also suing Hawaii and Michigan over their climate-related lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Finally, the Trump administration is working to end California's stringent motor vehicle emissions standards and its cap-and-trade program. (Republicans in the Senate recently moved to end Califonria's vehicle emission standards.) The first set of lawsuits pertain to climate 'superfund' laws. These are laws based on legislation passed in the 1980s that forced chemical and petroleum companies to pay for the cleanup of hazardous waste. In this scenario, the idea is to force fossil fuel companies to pay for the costs of the damaging effects of climate change. New York and Vermont passed climate superfund laws last year. Numerous states — from Maine to Tennessee — have expressed interest in passing laws like these in recent years. 'They're going to try to impose some liability — some fees — on these companies as a way of forcing them to internalize the cost of past activities,' Rachel Rothschild, an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan and an expert on superfunds, tells Rolling Stone. 'The companies that would be deemed responsible parties under the bills are those companies that have produced, extracted or sold fossil fuel products above a certain threshold during the time period that the bills are going to impose this retroactive liability.' Rothschild says it's 'pretty unprecedented' for the federal government to file lawsuits to block this kind of environmental legislation and that states have historically had the authority to address environmental issues that affect public health. These laws are only just starting to be implemented, so it's also quite early to be filing lawsuits against them. 'This seems to be part of a larger effort to not only do nothing when it comes to climate change but to actively dismantle the climate science and climate accountability enterprise that is being built in response to the costs of climate change that are manifesting in everyone's daily lives,' says Justin Mankin, a climate scientist at Dartmouth College. 'These costs from climate change — we are just beginning to confront them, and they are astounding.' As for the lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan, those are also quite unusual. The Justice Department decided to sue the two states before their respective lawsuits against fossil fuel companies had even been filed. Both states are hoping to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for how climate change has negatively impacted their environment, by making them pay for climate-related damages. 'It's almost unprecedented that the federal government is getting involved there,' says Anthony Moffa, a law professor at the University of Maine. Moffa says the Trump administration appears to be placing itself 'on the side of private industry,' and he thinks these actions may have been taken as part of an effort to dissuade other states from pursuing similar legal action. The actions the Trump administration has taken against California's environmental regulations could have a sweeping impact considering the size and influence of the state. Trump issued an executive order in April that directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop laws, like California's, that address climate change from being enforced. California has had some of the tightest vehicle emission standards in the country for decades, and the state sells a lot of cars, so the automotive industry is essentially guided by these standards. Many states have also chosen to adopt standards that are set by California. 'California leads the country in both strong greenhouse gas emission regulations for vehicles and conventional air pollution regulation,' says Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles. 'This is the move that worries me the most.' The people working in the Trump administration learned a few things from when Trump was president the first time around. One thing it appears they learned, Moffa says, is that states will take up the climate fight when the federal government abandons it. 'They recognized that was the strategy, and states have gotten even more ambitious,' Moffa says. 'This is their attempt to try to stop that.' States are trying to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for how they have contributed to climate change, and the Trump administration is making it clear it will have none of that. The lawsuits and strategies employed by the administration may not be successful, but they clearly create another barrier to acting on climate change. They could also make states more wary about passing new climate laws. 'Trump demanded large contributions from the oil industry in exchange for lax regulation,' Carlson says. 'This is an administration that is hell-bent on undermining anything to do with climate change but also, more broadly, any kind of environmental regulation that protects public health.' More from Rolling Stone Rubio Says Blocking Deportations to South Sudan Will Harm Humanitarian Aid Trump Pumped and Dumped His Crypto Backers With Dud Dinner Party Trump's FEMA Denies North Carolina's Request for Hurricane Helene Aid Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
