Environment: 1)2025 was the third warmest year on record; What does that mean in Canada?2)Eco-friendly toilet papers are trendy, but their actual environmental impacts vary

1)2025 was the third warmest year on record. What does that mean in Canada?

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Jordan Omstead, January 14, 2026

This past year was the third warmest on record and stood on the cusp of surpassing a major climate threshold globally, according to new data from the European climate agency.

The Copernicus data indicates 2025 was about 1.47 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels, following the previous year’s record-setting 1.6 degrees. When 2023 is added to the mix, it’s the first three-year period on record to exceed 1.5 degrees, the data suggests.

At the current rate, the 2015 Paris Agreement’s long-term global warming limit of 1.5 degrees could be reached by the end of this decade, about a decade earlier than predicted when the climate pact was signed, the agency said in a press release.

Canada is warming even faster than the global average. The loss of snow and sea ice – reflective shields against the sun – is leaving more of the country’s vast northern lands and seas exposed, which in turn drives up temperatures.

Here are five other numbers that help to illustrate how climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is reshaping life in Canada and for Canadians.

MORE THAN 89,000 SQUARE KILOMETRES OF FOREST BURNED

Canada endured its second worst wildfire season on record in 2025, behind only the 2023 season and marking a third consecutive active fire season. Preliminary results suggest fires consumed an area about the size of mainland Portugal, or 89,221 square kilometres.

Canada spent much of this wildfire season at its highest alert level. Thousands of people had to flee their homes and international firefighters were flown in to help.

The area burned by wildfire in the past decade is more than three times larger than what it was in the early 1970s, in large part due to human-caused climate change, said Mike Flannigan, one of Canada’s foremost wildfire experts.

“A colleague of mine wrote a paper in the ’90s saying urgent action is needed now to deal with climate change. And here it is 25, 30 years later saying the same bloody thing – urgent action is needed now and it’s falling mostly on deaf ears,” said Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C.

Warming temperatures are key to worsening forest fires for several reasons, said Flannigan. As temperature increase, the season gets longer, lightning strikes are expected to become more frequent and the forest’s vegetation gets drier.

$9.2 BILLION IN ESTIMATED CATASTROPHIC LOSSES

Along with wildfires, warmer temperatures are helping to fuel more powerful and less predictable storms. Those storms are costing Canadiansin ways that include hail-damaged cars, flooded homes and downed power lines.

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction estimates Canada now suffers an average of about $9.2 billion in annual losses from catastrophes, defined as events resulting in at least $30 million in insured losses. The estimates also account for uninsured losses. Many, but not all, of those losses are incurred during wildfires or periods of extreme weather, including floods and hail.

The research institute, a non-profit backed by the insurance industry and affiliated with Western University, says that when adjusted for inflation, the losses have grown by about 9.3 per cent annually since the early 1980s, far outpacing population, GDP and construction spending — all contributing factors to the rise.

“While I caution that you can’t attribute that solely to climate change, there are other factors as well, but climate change is playing quite a big role in those losses,” said Glenn McGillivray, the institute’s managing director.

“Climate change just kind of loads the dice a little bit and makes these things a bit more probable, a bit more common and, when they happen, even worse.”

In less than a month in 2024, Canada recorded four of its top 10 costliest events: the Calgary hailstorm, remnants of Hurricane Debby, the Jasper wildfire and southern Ontario flooding.

Those events, and others like them, have contributed to the surging price tag Canadians pay for home insurance.

Home insurance in hard-hit areas of British Columbia have seen premiums rise by almost 68 per cent from 2021 to 2025, according to a recent report by TD Economics, with increases in similarly hard-hit parts of Alberta and Prince Edward Island also topping 50 per cent.

3 MONTREAL HEAT WAVE DEATHS

As temperatures rise, so too does the number of days where Canadians are exposed to extreme heat.

Dr. Samantha Green, a Toronto family physician, says that can be dangerous, especially for vulnerable groups from isolated seniors to outdoor workers. Extended stretches of extreme heat, especially when nighttime temperatures don’t cool down, can worsen chronic conditions such as diseases affecting the heart, lung and kidneys, she said.

“We need to figure out how best to protect the most vulnerable in our communities because this is a growing threat,’ said Green, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Montreal’s public health department says during a heat wave from Aug. 10 to 13 last year, it received three reports of deaths that may have been heat-related. That same heat wave over southern Quebec was found to be at least two to 10 times more likely due to climate change, according to a rapid analysis by federal government scientists.

In Toronto, there were six heat warnings issued between June and August. During those periods, there were a total of 74 heat-related emergency department visits, Toronto Public Health said.

Both cities could, by around mid-century, see at least 20 more days where temperatures top 30 degrees compared to what was typical at the end of the 20th century, climate models suggest.

920,000 SQUARE KILOMETRES OF SUMMER SEA ICE

It was a record year, at least at times, for declining sea ice across both poles, Copernicus data shows.

In February, the combined sea ice cover from both poles was the lowest it’s been since satellite observations started in the late 1970s. In the Arctic, monthly sea ice extent was the lowest on record for January, February, March and December, and the second lowest in June and October.

Environment and Climate Change Canada says summer sea ice cover across Canada’s northern waters has declined by about seven per cent each decade since the late 1960s, when its records began.

In 2025, the department says summer sea ice was down to 920,000 square kilometres – not as bad as the worst years, but still at a level virtually unseen until the past 20 years. Studies suggest the Arctic Ocean could become virtually ice-free by mid-century, and possibly even sooner, largely due to planet-warming emissions.

27.8 PER CENT INCREASE IN COFFEE PRICES

To food economist Mike von Massow, coffee prices are a “canary in the coal mine” of climate change. The crop is facing serious threats from rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall and increased disease.

Von Massow says those climate-related impacts are a big driver of the rising costs here in Canada. Coffee prices were 27.8 per cent more in November 2025 compared to a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada data, continuing a longer-standing upward trend.

While U.S. tariffs on coffee likely helped drive up prices too, “the long-term increase in these prices is due to both warming temperatures and increasing variability in weather,” said von Massow, a professor at the University of Guelph.

When grocery prices go up, they can often be traced back to conditions in the fields made worse by climate change, von Massow said.

Surging lettuce prices in late 2025 were likely influenced by extreme weather and disease issues in Southern California, where Canada gets much of its supply that time of year, he said. He also pointed to how drought conditions have pushed up beef prices as farmers struggle to keep up their herds and afford feed costs.

2)Eco-friendly toilet papers are trendy, but their actual environmental impacts vary

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Isabella O’Malley, January 10, 2026

Toilet paper, a product that is used for a few seconds before being disposed of forever, is typically made with trees, energy-intensive manufacturing processes and chemicals that can pollute the environment.

Experts say more consumers are seeking toilet paper made from recycled content or sustainable materials, but it can be hard to know what to look for.

Sustainable toilet paper often costs more, but can have significant environmental benefits. According to the Environmental Paper Network, a coalition of nonprofits, more than 1 billion gallons (3.8 billion liters) of water and 1.6 million trees could be saved if every American used one roll of toilet paper made from recycled content instead of a roll made from forest fibers.

Here are some recommendations for buying sustainable toilet paper or reducing overall toilet paper use.

Toilet paper made from recycled fibers

North American toilet paper has traditionally been made from fibers from trees in Canada and eucalyptus plantations in Brazil. Pulp made from the trees is bleached to create a bright white color, but the chlorine that’s often used can hurt the environment. Large amounts of electricity and heat are used to remove moisture and form square sheets.

Increasingly, manufacturers are making toilet paper from recycled paper products, which avoids material from freshly cut trees, and are using chlorine-free bleaching techniques. Once used, toilet paper itself is flushed and not recycled.

Looking for recycled content is a good place for environmentally conscious consumers to start, said Gary Bull, professor emeritus of forest economics at the University of British Columbia. Preconsumer materials include scrap materials from manufacturing or unsold paper. Postconsumer materials come from paper products that have already been used.

Making toilet paper from postconsumer recycled fibers improves its sustainability because paper is “one of the easiest materials on the planet to recycle,” Bull said.

Evaluating sustainability claims

The best way for a scientist to evaluate the carbon footprint of an item is doing a life cycle assessment, which calculates the environmental impacts from when a tree is a seedling to when its fibers are converted into toilet paper and flushed down the drain, Bull said. But that method isn’t within reach of consumers, so advocates have undertaken third-party assessments.

Some companies add those labels to packaging to show that their processes have been vetted. Bull said labels on bath tissue from the Forest Stewardship Council or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative indicate the company is making scientifically-proven efforts to be sustainable. Both groups’ standards include conserving water, wildlife, and biodiversity as well as compliance with applicable forestry laws to keep ecosystems healthy.

The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council also publishes an annual report that grades toilet papers from A+ to F, with the highest-ranked products being unbleached or bleached without chlorine, containing recycled content and avoiding harmful forestry practices. Aria, Green Forest, Natural Value, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods 365 100% Recycled received the highest letter grade in 2025, with all made entirely from recycled materials.

The “The Issue with Tissue” report was launched in 2019, and NRDC corporate campaign advocate Ashley Jordan said she has noticed dozens of sustainable toilet paper brands have emerged over the last six years.

Kory Russel, assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental studies at the University of Oregon, said that when people purchase a sustainable product it sends a message to corporations to make more eco-friendly products available.

Sustainable toilet paper brands typically cost more per square foot than conventional products. But Russel said prices will likely drop if consumers continue buying it and manufacturers expand production.

“If more people are buying sustainable toilet paper and demanding it, there should be economies of scale and prices should fall to match that of conventional toilet paper,” he said.

Mark Pitts, executive director of tissue at the American Forest & Paper Association, whose members include large toilet paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Georgia-Pacific, told The Associated Press that sustainability is a core industry focus and members have reported reductions of greenhouse gas emissions along the supply chain. He said that members follow responsible forestry practices and have increased their use of recycled material.

Bamboo, alternative materials and energy

Alternative materials such as fast-growing bamboo are often billed as more sustainable than toilet paper made from trees, but consumers should focus on toilet paper made with recycled materials instead, said Ronalds Gonzalez, an associate professor at North Carolina State University and expert on fibers used in the hygiene industry.

Gonzalez said pollution from manufacturing processes can reduce the benefits of using bamboo. Gonzalez recently co-authored a study that found bamboo toilet paper made in China that is available in the U.S. had a higher environmental impact than toilet paper made in the U.S. with imported forest fibers, largely because Chinese manufacturers use electricity generated by coal. The study found the bamboo toilet paper’s environmental impacts could be reduced when it was produced in regions that use renewable energy.

Bidets can remove the need for toilet paper

Bidets are devices that allow people to rinse after using the bathroom so they can reduce or avoid wiping. They’re another way people can reduce their toilet paper use.

Bidets, which are popular in Europe, can be a separate wash basin or a device added to toilets that generate a stream of water. Some people still use a small amount of toilet paper to dry off. Bidets that can be attached to your toilet and don’t use electricity can cost around $30, while toilet seats with fancy options such as heated water and air dryers can exceed $600. Some bidets require a plumber or contractor to install.

Bidets are a sustainable alternative to conventional toilet paper because “you’re not using any sort of logging, it’s water that’s already coming to your household and it’s very little water,” Russel said.