B.C. climate news: How sustainable are Vancouver's AI data centres going to be? Spring heat dome scorches parts of UK, Europe
Here is all the latest local and international news concerning climate change for the week of May 25 to May 31, 2026.
A person protects from the sun under an umbrella in front of the Louvre museum in Paris as a record-breaking early heatwave scorches a swathe of western Europe on May 28, 2026. The UK and France have reported their hottest ever May days this week as a heat dome brought sizzling temperatures more typical of midsummer to western Europe. Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP via Getty Images.
Here is 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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In climate news this week:
- How sustainable are Vancouver's AI data centres going to be?
- Alberta wants to build a second oil pipeline to B.C.'s coast
- Spring heat dome scorches parts of UK, Europe
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.
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.
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.
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.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet, causing climate change. Human activities have raised the atmosphere's carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years, according to NASA.
Quick facts:
- 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.
