Climate change in Canada

In Canada mitigation of anthropogenic climate change is being addressed more seriously by the provinces than by the federal government. The 2015 election signals greater federal leadership as noted in Canada's National Statement at COP21, making climate change a top priority, and pledging actions based on the best scientific evidence and advice.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), formerly Environment Canada, is a federal department with the stated role of protecting the environment, conserving national natural heritage, and also providing weather and meteorological information. According to ECCC "warming over the 20th century is indisputable and largely due to human activities" adding "Canada's rate of warming is about twice the global rate: a 2°C increase globally means a 3 to 4ºC increase for Canada".Berkeley Earth has reported that 2015 was "unambiguously" the warmest year on record across the world, with the Earth’s temperature more than 1.0 C (1.8 F) above the 1850-1900 average.

ECCC lists impacts of climate change consistent with global changes. Temperature-related changes include longer growing season, more heat waves and fewer cold spells, thawing permafrost, earlier river ice break-up, earlier spring runoff, and earlier budding of trees. Meteorological changes include an increase in precipitation and more snowfall in northwest Arctic. Highlighting that "Warming is not uniform ...(the) Arctic is warming even faster", ECCC notes 2012 had the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice on record up to 2014.

ECCC's Climate Research Division summarized annual precipitation changes to support biodiversity assessments by the Canadian Councils of Resource Ministers. Evaluating records up to 2007 they observed: "Precipitation has generally increased over Canada since 1950 with the majority of stations with significant trends showing increases. The increasing trend is most coherent over northern Canada where many stations show significant increases. There is not much evidence of clear regional patterns in stations showing significant changes in seasonal precipitation except for significant decreases which tend to be concentrated in the winter season over southwestern and southeastern Canada. Also, increasing precipitation over the Arctic appears to be occurring in all seasons except summer."

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