Canada already 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels; older adults face immediate heat risk

Canada's average temperature is already 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to Canada's Changing Climate Report 2026. At that threshold, people aged 65 and older are already susceptible to uncompensable heat stress—a condition where the body cannot cool itself through sweating and blood circulation to the skin.

Older adults lose physiological cooling capacity as they age: reduced sweat gland output, weakened skin blood-vessel response, and decreased cardiac output all make them vulnerable. A Lancet Planetary Health study examining age group susceptibility across warming scenarios found older people most likely to die in heat waves combined with high humidity. Global temperatures are continuing to rise, meaning every summer for the foreseeable future will be hotter than the one before.

BC's 2021 heat dome offers a grim local reference. Between June 25 and July 1, 619 people died from heat-related causes in the province. Ninety per cent of those deaths were people aged 60 or older; 91 per cent had at least one chronic disease. One third lived in neighborhoods classified as most socially deprived.

The scale is global: by 2050, more than two billion people on the planet will be 65 or older. Half will live in southern and eastern Asia, from the Persian Gulf to the Yellow Sea. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warns that Hindu Kush Himalaya glaciers feed 10 major river systems—the Indus, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers among them—which nearly two billion people depend on for water.

Rosie Simms, director of place-based projects at the POLIS Water Sustainability Project at the University of Victoria, co-authored a report calling for a shift from crisis response to proactive drought planning. "We can't be trying to fix drought in an emergency," Simms said. "There's a whole suite of things that would set us British Columbian communities up to be in a much better place to weather droughts and actually live well in drier conditions."

Metro Vancouver currently lacks a centralized plan to address heat vulnerability or a single easy-to-access map of public cooling centres. Some municipalities have plans for 24-hour cooling centres for vulnerable populations and seniors, but coverage is uneven.