Overview
- The federal report, released Sept. 4, 2026, projects roughly 5°C average warming for Canada by 2100 under current global policies with much larger winter warming in parts of the North.
- Authors say human activities are the primary cause and express high confidence that observed and projected changes are driven by fossil-fuel emissions.
- The assessment describes some changes as effectively irreversible on human timescales, including glacier loss, ongoing sea-level rise and accelerating permafrost thaw.
- It presents alternate futures: about 3.5°C warming under a net-zero pathway and about 6.9°C with no policies, and it warns wildfire area and extreme precipitation will rise substantially in all higher-warming scenarios.
- Scientists and climate groups criticized the quiet online release and urged faster emissions cuts plus major investment in adaptation to protect communities, infrastructure and northern ways of life, noting recent extreme events have matched earlier projections.