The McDougall Creek wildfire burns on the mountainside above a lakefront home, in West Kelowna, B.C., on Aug. 18, 2023.Elliott Cappell is PwC Canada’s national climate change leader, and he supports the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board as a climate change subject matter expert. He previously served as Toronto’s chief resilience officer.
It may seem obvious what looms for us with Canada’s warmest winter on record now over. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed in its recentthat there is a one-in-three chance that 2024 will be even hotter. So wildfires and drought, and the pain and challenges they bring, seem likely this summer.
This spring and summer, then, offer a bellwether for how Canadian businesses are thinking about climate adaptation, particularly as the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board seeks input on its proposed approach for organizations’ disclosure of sustainability-related information.
It is entirely plausible that global warming will continue to rise past the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 C target – and possibly well past. A world that is two, three or even four degrees warmer is plausible within 50 years; to put that into context, after the last ice age, the world warmedSo the changes for customers, markets and supply chains could be both significant and fast. To ensure that businesses’ disclosures are meaningful, helping them understand physical risk is an urgent priority.