Climate Change and Health in Canada

conference came at a time of increasing political and scientific confidence in the role of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions in changing global temperatures. The most recent (2007) report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2) states that climate change is now " unequivocal " , based on increasing evidence from global average air and ocean temperatures, melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level " (2). While there remains uncertainty regarding the specific nature and rate of climatic changes and their impacts, there is negligible scientific doubt that the global climate is changing and that these changes will have significant and potentially profound impacts on a wide range of ecological and human systems across the planet (3-6). That climate change predictions are both scientifically and politically daunting lessens neither their verity nor implied imperative (7, 8). Climate change will involve an average increase in global temperatures of approximately 1.1-6.4°C by the end of the century (1); this range reflects both uncertainty in climate modeling, as well as a range of possible scenarios for how we will respond to climate changes, including mitigation, technology development, economic development and population growth. This temperature shift will be manifest in average global climatic changes, including higher maximum temperature, more very hot days, increased occurrence and severity of heat waves, fewer cold and frost days, fewer cold spells, more intense precipitation events, increased risk of drought in