With the last summer period which was one of the hottest on record and the multiplication of hurricanes and floods all over the world, climatologist Alain Bourque thinks that the solution is to adapt to these climatic changes and to invest long-term.
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“What surprises scientists is that it should have been a cooler summer, because there is the La Niña phenomenon, an abnormally cool current of water that occurs around the Equator all along the Ocean Pacific, and usually this phenomenon tends to cool the temperatures in these regions, but often also on the whole of the globe”, explained the climatologist and director general of the organization Ouranos, consortium on regional climatology and the adaptation to climate change, Alain Bourque.
“It’s not very encouraging. […]that means that climate change is dominating natural processes which meant that sometimes we had cooler summers, ”he said at the microphone of Philippe-Vincent Foisy at QUB radio.
According to him, these phenomena are likely to intensify and become more complex, because “we are going to have interactions between climatic regimes that we have seen very little before”, he clarified.
The climatologist takes the example of British Columbia in 2021, which has seen a succession of droughts, heat waves, forest fires and floods.
“The interactions of several meteorological phenomena over the course of a year are more difficult to follow and anticipate,” explained Mr. Bourque.
We must act
“If we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality at the planetary level, we can succeed in stabilizing the scale of these climate changes there, but some of these changes are already underway and with which we will have to learn to live,” he said.
According to the climatologist, we must “make long-term investments” to adapt cities and coastal areas to climate change, for example by investing in infrastructure adapted to precipitation events.
“In Quebec, we tend to water the fields by putting jets in the air, which means that half of the water evaporates into the air rather than going to the crops, whereas in California, we already use drips which make it possible to use each drop of water to successfully grow plants, etc.
Alain Bourque believes that Hurricane Fiona, which should turn into a major storm and hit eastern Quebec, could do damage, because “we can see it coming, the infrastructure is already there, we cannot respond quickly” .
“One of the biggest challenges of adaptation is to succeed in drawing lessons from past events to change territorial and economic development in the long term,” he revealed.
Climate change in politics
According to Mr. Bourque, “things have progressed, never 20 years ago did we talk about carbon neutrality. Now, there is no longer anyone who says that we should not achieve carbon neutrality”.
“The other side of the coin is that it seems that politicians are always 10 or 15 years behind what the science says and what should be done,” he said. -He insists.
Despite this, the climatologist specified that Europe was among the most avant-garde in terms of public policies, just like Quebec compared to North America.
“The biggest challenge for decision-makers these days is that they are supposed to represent a population, so if the population does not make it clear that climate change is the top priority or a priority, the decision-makers themselves are caught. with this situation of having to swing and strike a balance between long-term investments to fight against climate change, versus short-term emergencies to improve a lot of files”, underlined Alain Bourque.
“Perhaps we should take less time trying to blame one level of government or this group of individuals, and instead try to align collectively to fight climate change together,” he added.