FAQs
My Kid's Future frequently asked questions
In creating the impacts for My Kid's Future, we tried our best to describe the likely worst-case scenario for climate change, SSP5 - 8.5, which involves no new actions or policies towards mitigation and a continued reliance on fossil fuels throughout the economy. However, the depth and quality of local information available for each province or territory varies widely by jurisdiction. Where data is not available for specific impacts at SSP5 - 8.5, we used the more likely scenarios that were available. This means these outcomes are even more likely to happen, even with new climate change mitigation policies. We will continue to look for more data and resources and update these impacts to be more accurate as new information becomes available.
Before we dive into what SSP5 - 8.5 means specifically, let’s talk more generally about the climate scenarios we use. There are different globally recognized scenarios for evaluating potential climate futures. The two most recent and commonly used ones are the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs).
RCPs: The RCP scenarios were used in the second to last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report known as CMIP5. These scenarios describe trajectories of change in GHGs in the atmosphere over time, which corresponds to a certain amount of radiative forcing (the amount of heat trapped in the earth’s atmosphere). While they do factor in some expected socio-economic conditions, each scenario is specifically labelled based on their projected radiated forcing number:
- RCP2.6 represents a peak in radiative forcing at approximately 3 W/m2 by mid-century before declining to 2.6 W/m2 by 2100.
- RCP4.5 represents a stabilization (without overshoot) in radiative forcing at 4.5 W/m2 post 2100.
- RCP6.0 represents a stabilization (without overshoot) in radiative forcing at 6 W/m2 post 2100.
- RCP8.5 represents a rise in radiative forcing to 8.5 W/m2 in 2100.
So, in these scenarios, RCP2.6 represents the least amount of global warming and the most global mitigation efforts, and RCP8.5 represents the most global warming and the least amount of global mitigation efforts of all the scenarios used.
SSPs: The SSP scenarios are the most recent scenarios used for the latest IPCC report known as CMIP6. They’re the most complex scenarios that have been created to date because they factor in socio-economic changes and decisions into how we would have reached each scenario. This means these scenarios consider policy decisions, social equity, population trends and reliance on fossil fuels, for instance. They were also created to directly align with the commitments in the Paris Agreement to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees C: SSP1, the most optimistic scenario, is based on society collectively meeting its Paris Agreement commitment. The following table from ClimateData.ca describes the four scenarios:
The SSPs were designed to be used in tandem with the RCPs to create scenarios indicating projected climate change and societal change in the future. So, when we say we’ve based the impacts in My Kid's Future on an SSP5 - 8.5 scenario, that means we’ve based it on a combination of SSP5 and RCP8.5, wherever possible.
Wherever possible we stuck to official government and institutional sources, like from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Government of Canada, provincial and territorial governments, and the World Bank. There is also some data pulled from credible non-governmental organizations, but we made sure any information they provided had the sources and data to back up their claims. However, finding localized data on impacts specific to each province or territory was a challenge - depth, quality, and quantity of data on climate change impacts varied widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. So while we did our best to make sure everything was based on SSP5 - 8.5 scenarios, some impacts listed may actually be based on even more likely scenarios, like SSP2 - 4.5, or in the case of the territories, the impacts are actually already happening but are expected to worsen.
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Department of Environment and Climate Change (2022). Weathering What’s Ahead: Climate Change Risk and Nova Scotia’s Well-Being. Province of Nova Scotia. Accessible at: https://climatechange.novascotia.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/climate-change-risk-report.pdf
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