Latest news with #climateDisasters
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
B.C.'s farmers lost $457M in 2024, the most in Canada
British Columbia farmers lost $456.9 million in 2024, according to Statistics Canada, with a lobby group saying there are multiple reasons the province's agricultural sector suffered the largest net loss in Canada last year. Statistics Canada data shows that B.C. farms, as a whole, haven't turned a profit since 2017, and the farm sector has seen a larger net loss every year since 2020. The B.C. Agriculture Council said the cost to find suitable agricultural land is prohibitively high in B.C., and the average farmer in the Lower Mainland is carrying millions of dollars in debt. In addition, a series of climate disasters have wreaked havoc on B.C. farms, including the 2021 floods in the Fraser Valley that affected 1,100 farms and led to more than 60,000 hectares of farmland being lost, according to Jennifer Woike, the president of the agriculture council. The council is asking the government to increase its compensation programs for those affected by climate disasters, as well as updating the province's 52-year-old Agriculture Land Reserve (ALR) to ensure farms can survive in the decades to come. "B.C. is the most expensive province to farm in in Canada," said Woike, who owns a Vancouver Island farm that primarily deals with egg-laying poultry. Woike said one of the biggest hurdles for the sustainability of farms, especially for farmers who don't have intergenerational wealth and land to rely on, is the cost of land. "You can't just build a poultry farm on a five-acre parcel of land. It doesn't fit," she said. "So finding those large acreages are few and far between, and they are expensive." Climate change, tariffs latest hurdles Woike said climate change was a "whole chapter" unto itself when it came to how farmers in the province have struggled with profitability. In 2021, an unprecedented heat dome led to fruit crops being "cooked" on the branch in the Okanagan and Fraser valleys, followed by thousands of crops being submerged by floods in the fall. Two years after that, the province saw its worst drought and wildfire seasons in recorded history. In 2024, a historic cold snap led to the destruction of a year's worth of crops in some areas. Woike said she appreciates the province's climate mitigation and disaster relief programs, but the application processes were often bogged down in bureaucracy. "Those programs were not designed to make the farmer whole. You know, sometimes they only cover up to 70 per cent of the losses," she said. WATCH | Cold snap devastates fruit vines: A new hurdle facing farmers this year is the prospect of U.S. tariffs — with Woike saying B.C. farmers are reliant on imports, as the province simply doesn't produce the right kind of fertilizers and pest control products that farmers need. "Disruptions to those global supply chains, since the pandemic, have increased these costs anywhere from 30 per cent to as much as 100 per cent," she said. Province working to update ALR In addition to asking the government to increase compensation rates for climate disaster relief programs, Woike said she'd like the government to update the ALR. The program was established in 1973 to protect land with prime agricultural conditions for farming and ranching. It currently protects approximately 4.6 million hectares of arable land in B.C., and Woike said she'd like to see it updated. "The ALR itself ensures that there's still hope for future generations to be able to afford farmland — because it is preserved just for farms. That is super important," Woike said. In a statement, B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said the province is working together with farmers to build a sustainable food system in B.C. "I have heard from farmers and producers about the challenges they have been dealing with, including high costs, climate impacts, intensified global competition, access to labour and the potential impact of tariffs," she said. "Earlier this year, we responded to an industry request and set up a new Premier's Task Force that is working on the most pressing issues for the agriculture and food sector including profitability and competitiveness." The B.C. government said it provided $175 million to tree fruit growers through climate-related financial assistance programs between 2020 and March 2024, and also designed specific recovery programs for large-scale climate disasters. It added that it is advocating for changes at the federal level to ensure funding can be distributed to farmers more easily during disaster situations. "The B.C. government supports increasing food production in the ALR," a ministry spokesperson said. "We also know there is a need for more land to do processing, and we are actively working on a renewed inventory of the ALR so we can make better policy decisions supporting agriculture."
E&E News
08-05-2025
- Science
- E&E News
NOAA database will stop tracking most expensive disasters
One of NOAA's most comprehensive climate disaster information portals will no longer be updated, according to an agency notice posted atop the Billion-Dollar Disasters webpage. The decision to abandon the website is 'in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes,' the notice states. 'All past reports, spanning 1980-2024, and their underlying data remain authoritative, archived and available via the landing page.' 'The NOAA Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product will be retired, with no updates beyond calendar year 2024,' the agency said in its notice. Advertisement In a Bluesky post, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called the move to discontinue updating the site 'anti-science, anti-safety and anti-American.'
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Shocking report reveals the cities most vulnerable to climate disasters
A shocking report has revealed the 'sitting duck' cities which are most vulnerable to climate disasters. The report, produced by the Financial Times, warns that Amsterdam, Houston, and New York City are among those at risk of being flooded while Austin is at high risk of fires Meanwhile, several densely populated cities, including Lisbon, Naples, Athens, and Christchurch are at risk of both heat waves and flooding. Worryingly, experts say they don't know when these disasters could hit. Guillermo Rein, a fire sciences professor at Imperial College London, speaking to the Financial Times said: 'But at the global level, they are becoming more probable. 'In the next year there's going to be a big wildfire destroying a big community. 'But we have absolutely no idea where that is going to happen.' Described by climate scientists as 'sitting ducks', scientists say that some cities have been 'lucky' to not experience an extreme climate event so far. In these most at risk areas the natural geography, climate conditions, and city planning have combined to create an exceptional risk. Yet many of these cities have already come close to complete destruction. In August last year, Athens, which is home to 3.6 million people, narrowly escaped catastrophe as a wildfire reached the outskirts of the city. The fire scorched 40 square miles of land northeast of the city, killing one woman and forcing thousands to flee their homes. However, the flames stopped just short of entering the city centre where even more serious damage could have taken place. Dr Thomas Smith, an expert on environmental geography from the London School Of Economics And Political Science, told the Financial Times: 'What was missing was the wind element.' Had there been strong winds, like the Santa Ana winds which drove the Los Angeles wildfires, the situation might have been far more severe. For sitting duck cities like Athens, a major risk factor stemsfrom their proximity to the wilderness. As cities spread, they push further into the surrounding grasslands, forests, and fields where wildfires are more prone to start. Scientists call this area the wildland-urban interface and estimate that it makes up about 4.7 per cent of the planet's surface. In Europe, the wildland-urban interface covers 15 per cent of the continent and is home to more than 60 per cent of the population. While climate change does not directly cause wildfires, it makes the conditions for intense blazes significantly more likely. The risks of fire are increased by warming temperatures which create dry vegetation, and combined with strong winds the outcomes can be deadly. The World Weather Attribution - a network of researchers from the U.S., UK and a number of other European countries - warned that the hot, dry, and windy conditions that drove the Los Angeles wildfires are about 35 per cent more likely due to global warming. In the UK, unusually warm spring weather means the country has already passed the record for land destroyed by wildfires. Since the start of 2025, more than 113 square miles of land has been consumed by fires across the country. However, it is not only wildfires which pose a threat to sitting duck cities around the world. According to an analysis by Moody's, a financial research firm, roughly 2.4billion people now live in areas that are at risk of inland river or flash flooding. In the U.S., Dallas, Houston, Washington DC, New York, and Sacramento are all at extreme risk of flooding due to climate change. Dallas is especially threatened by flooding due to the city's rapid growth. As it has grown city planners have added concrete or asphalt areas which cannot absorb water meaning that when heavy rain comes, it runs off these impermeable surfaces and rapidly collects, triggering flash flooding. In 2022, a sudden deluge of 38cm of rain in 24 hours triggered a flood which submerged homes and swept away cars. Other cities considered sitting ducks for flooding include Amsterdam, Ahmedabad, and Buenos Aires. Just like the risk posed by wildfires, the changing climate has made flooding not only more frequent but also more severe. Following devastating flooding in Valencia, Spain last year scientists said that the catastrophic event was fuelled by climate change. Dr Friederike Otto, head of the World Weather Attribution at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said: 'No doubt about it, these explosive downpours were intensified by climate change.' An increasingly warm climate has even made some cities vulnerable to wildfires and flooding. Wildfires destroy vegetation such as trees which makes the soil less able to absorb water. This means areas which have suffered wildfires are more likely to be affected by flash flooding if heavy rain follows. According to research, the elevated risk of flooding can persist for up to a decade after a fire. Cities considered sitting ducks for both fire and flooding are Lisbon, Athens, Naples, Cape Town, Sydney, and Christchurch. Recent studies have found that a number of major cities, including Dallas, are now undergoing a process which is being called 'climate whiplash'. This means they are facing both increasingly severe periods of dry weather and more extreme wet periods. These cycles of drought and flooding make cities more vulnerable to climate disasters and give authorities less time to prepare for extreme conditions.
