He is a professor at the University of Western Ontario and Chair for Policy in the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.

[2] He returned to Environment Canada as Assistant Deputy Minister from 1994 to 2000, responsible for climate, weather and air quality sciences and services in the federal government.

[2][3] In 1995, McBean gave a speech to the World Meteorological Organization on global warming.

In 2006, McBean, with Andrew Weaver and Ken Denman, authored an open letter, signed by 90 Canadian climate scientists, to Prime Minister Stephen Harper calling for an effective national climate change strategy.

In 2018, he was professor in the Departments of Geography, Political Science and Physics at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, and is currently Director of Policy Studies at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction and Co-Director of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability there.