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Here’s all the latest local and international news concerning climate change for the week of May 4 to May 10, 2026.
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Here’s the latest news concerning climate change and biodiversity loss in B.C. and around the world, from the steps leaders are taking to address the problems, to all the up-to-date science.
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Check back every Saturday for more climate and environmental news or sign up for our Sunrise newsletter HERE.
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In climate news this week:
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• FortisBC violating environmental permit for more than a year
• Early heat wave: B.C. Hydro sets a record for peak May demand
• Severe weather expected with strong El Niño climate pattern: AP report
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Human activities like burning fossil fuels and farming livestock are the main drivers of climate change, according to the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change. This causes heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, increasing the planet’s surface and ocean temperature.
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Sunrise
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The panel, which is made up of scientists from around the world, including researchers from B.C., has warned for decades that wildfires and severe weather, such as the province’s deadly heat dome and catastrophic flooding in 2021, would become more frequent and intense because of the climate emergency. It has issued a code red for humanity and warns the window to limit warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial times is closing.
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According to NASA climate scientists, human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50 per cent in less than 200 years, and “there is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate.”
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As of May 5, 2026, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 431.12 parts per million, up from 429.35 ppm the previous month, according to the latest available data from the NOAA measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, a global atmosphere monitoring lab in Hawaii. The NOAA notes there has been a steady rise in CO2 from under 320 ppm in 1960.
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Quick facts:
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• The global average temperature in 2023 reached 1.48 C higher than the pre-industrial average, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. In 2024, it breached the 1.5 C threshold at 1.55 C.
• 2025 was the third warmest on record after 2024 and 2023, capping the 11th consecutive warmest years.
• Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by nearly 49 per cent above pre-industrial levels starting in 1850.
• The world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target to keep global temperature from exceeding 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change including sea level rise, and more intense drought, heat waves and wildfires.
• UNEP’s 2025 Emissions Gap Report, released in early December, shows that even if countries meet emissions targets, global temperatures could still rise by 2.3 C to 2.5 C this century.
• In June 2025, global concentrations of carbon dioxide exceeded 430 parts per million, a record high.
• There is global scientific consensus that the climate is warming and that humans are the cause.
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Latest News
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FortisBC violating environmental permit for more than a year
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A project by FortisBC to build a pipeline to supply natural gas to the Woodfibre LNG export facility near Squamish has been dumping effluent into a creek for over a year in violation of its environmental permit.
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A Postmedia analysis of weekly water quality reports published by Fortis showed the volume of wastewater discharged from a water treatment plant at a construction site associated with the project exceeded allowable amounts almost every single day from March 2025 to the end of March 2026.
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On at least 35 of those days, more than twice the allowable amount of effluent was discharged into East Creek, on Howe Sound’s western shore, south of Squamish.
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“Fortis has failed to comply with their permit since as early as September 2024, I believe, by dumping pollution loaded with heavy metals into the Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound biosphere, which is a fragile and recovering ecosystem,” said Tracey Saxby, executive-director of My Sea To Sky, an environmental non-profit. Átl’ka7tsem is one of three Squamish Nation names for Howe Sound.
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Between January 2025 and March 2026, Fortis dumped 365 million litres more effluent into a creek than its permit allowed.
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—Nathan Griffiths
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Early heat wave: B.C. Hydro sets a record for peak May demand
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This week’s early season hot spell pushed electricity demand to a new record for the month of May, says B.C. Hydro.
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Customers across B.C. used 7,600 megawatts, “the highest level ever seen in May, especially this early in the month,” said the Crown utility in a news release Tuesday. The peak hourly demand was on Monday and, with temperatures expected to start dropping again Wednesday, that is likely to remain the peak.
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In spite of the spike, B.C. Hydro said its clean-electricity grid was up to the task of meeting the demand. And it pales in comparison with demand during the coldest months of winter.
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The record was likely reached in part because of the proliferation of air conditioners across the province as temperatures rise.
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—Joseph Ruttle
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India heat wave creates new inflation risks after oil surge
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India is facing inflation threats from heat waves and below normal rainfall this year, creating new economic pressures for policymakers already grappling with soaring energy costs.
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Temperatures of as high as 47 C gripped parts of northern India last week, and power demand has surged to a record in the country as households cranked up air conditioners and fans to cool down. The government is also predicting below-normal rains between the June and September monsoon season, which is crucial for farming activity.
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For most of last year, inflation in India languished below the Reserve Bank of India’s target of four per cent, largely because of declining vegetable prices. This year’s adverse weather conditions will likely push inflation above five per cent in the fiscal year beginning April 1, exceeding the RBI’s projection of 4.6 per cent, according to economists.
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“The ongoing heat wave and erratic monsoon will all impart upside risk to food prices that have remained well behaved so far,” said Dhiraj Nim, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. The rain forecasts “along with high energy prices and agricultural inputs costs, make for a perfect storm for food prices down the line,” he said. Nim expects inflation to average close to five per cent this fiscal year.
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—Bloomberg News
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Severe weather expected with strong El Niño climate pattern: AP report
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Seasonal models are predicting an El Niño climate pattern that could be the strongest on record, bringing with it more extreme weather, according to a report by The Associated Press.
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The report quotes meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli sa saying he thinks there will be “weather events that we’ve never seen in modern history before.”
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El Niño is expected to develop mid-year, impacting global temperature and rainfall patterns, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
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“After a period of neutral conditions at the start of the year, climate models are now strongly aligned, and there is high confidence in the onset of El Niño, followed by further intensification in the months that follow,” said Wilfran Moufouma Okia, chief of climate prediction at WMO.
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“Models indicate that this may be a strong event – but the so-called spring predictability barrier is a challenge for the certainty of forecasts at this time of year. Forecast confidence generally improves after April.”
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El Niño is characterized by a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific. It typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months, according to the WMO.
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—AP, WMO
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Microsoft may abandon its clean energy powered data centre targets
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Microsoft Corp. may shelve one of the industry’s most ambitious clean-energy targets as it tries to remove hurdles that could hold it back in the race to power data centres, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
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The company is weighing whether to delay — or even abandon altogether — its 2030 target of matching 100 per cent of its hourly electricity use with renewable energy purchases, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter.
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The costly and energy-intensive build-out of data centres is affecting views on the feasibility of climate commitments made before the AI era, the people said. Talks inside Microsoft are ongoing and no final decision has been made, they also said.
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A spokesperson for Microsoft said the company continues to look for opportunities to maintain an annual matching goal, without commenting on the much tougher hourly commitment.
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Such a retreat would mark a significant shift. Big Tech has long stood out for its public embrace of some unusually ambitious emissions-cutting goals, with Microsoft even pledging to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits. But as companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. try to secure enough energy to meet the demands of artificial intelligence, the appeal of natural gas has been growing.
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—Bloomberg News
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Thieves are stealing Chile’s solar panels and cashing In on the black market
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Just before midnight, two men in white coveralls and black gloves scale an electric fence at a solar farm in Chile’s Atacama Desert, then slip soundlessly into rows of sleek panels. Others use a poultry shear and electric angle grinder to breach the main gate. Three pickups without license plates pull in so the gang can load up their loot and race away.
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The thieves typically have less than an hour before police arrive to disable cameras, slice cables and extract dozens of panels before vanishing into the dunes. In this case, there was only one security guard, who was instructed to hide in case of an intrusion. They tied him up anyway.
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Chile is witnessing a surge in theft on solar farms. Many in the industry privately confirm they’ve been hit, yet few are willing to say so publicly as the stolen equipment slips into black markets.
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In this narrow strip of the Andes, exceptionally sunny conditions, market-based electricity pricing and a favourable investment climate have fuelled a swift photovoltaic build-out, from just 3% of total installed capacity in 2015 to a third of the system today, according to government data. Following a pattern in other places like California and the UK, this solar boom has brought crime along with it. But here the trend is turbocharged by more remote expanses and entrenched organized crime, posing risks for Chile’s critical infrastructure, with potential consequences for grid reliability and foreign investment.
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—Bloomberg News
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