Climate change: Canada has an adaptation strategy

Ottawa –

Canada will develop a new National Climate Adaptation Strategy to eliminate heat and wildfire deaths, protect homes and businesses most at risk of flooding, and get people displaced by extreme weather homes sooner. It outlines the government’s intention to return to

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair is set to unveil an adaptation strategy and plans to implement it on Prince Edward Island on Thursday. He does so on behalf of Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeau, who has been called in on a personal matter.

The government describes the document as a blueprint for identifying the hazards facing Canadians, figuring out how to mitigate the risks, and setting goals for doing so in practice.

Goals include better informing Canadians of these risks, eliminating all heat-related deaths, and rebuilding not only to recover from major events, but to withstand the next. Includes upgrades to the National Disaster Financial Assistance Program including;

The government also released a list of what it will do to support adaptation, including new investments in the Federal Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and cash to fight wildfires and create more complete flood maps across the country. increase.

Before discussing the new document, Blair and several other Liberal Cabinet members and MPs will tour parts of the PEI that were devastated by Rainforest Storm Fiona two months ago. This includes Red Head Harbor, where one pier was demolished, one pier was lifted several meters by a storm surge, and one pier disappeared completely.

The storm caused an estimated $660 billion in insured losses. The federal government says extreme weather could cause $15 billion in damages annually by 2030.

But that number could be lower if Canadians adapted to the climate they are facing now, rather than continuing to live in a country built for the climate of the past.

“The choices and adaptive actions we take today will help determine the future of our communities, our lives, our environment and our economy,” Guilbeau said in a statement Wednesday.

That statement accompanied the release of an assessment of the climate impacts already facing northern Canada. In the north, where global warming is three times faster than her global average, “climate change is causing severe and often irreversible changes to northern landscapes and ecosystems,” warns. doing.

This includes permafrost warming, shrub encroachment on the tundra, species distribution changes, and increased pests and fires.

Other regional assessments have already warned of everything from sea-level rise in the Atlantic Ocean, more heatwaves in Quebec, torrential rains in southern Ontario, and more common flooding and fires in British Columbia. I’m here.

In the steppes, climate change could upend entire ecosystems, turning boreal forests into parks and grasslands, and wiping out some mountain ecosystems altogether.

In climate change policy, mitigation is the word used for actions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere leading to global warming. Adaptation is the word used for actions that adapt our lives to the fact that the earth is already warming.

By 2016, the Canadian Atlantic had already warmed on average by 0.7°C since 1948, according to scientific assessments. Quebec is warming between 1°C and 3°C, depending on the region, and could rise another 3.5°C by 2050.

Adaptation strategies include specific and measurable goals for everything from flood protection to expanding protected areas. However, these goals are provisional, awaiting state and territory approval.

The Government consults with the provinces and territories on plans and targets for 90 days, some of which falls within the jurisdiction of the provinces.

Blair Feltmate, director of the Intact Center on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, says adaptation is not only useful, but mission critical.

“The days we don’t fit in are the days we don’t have,” he said.

Feltmate was one of dozens of experts who helped formulate the strategy and provided key areas for the government to focus on in its final plan. Guilbeault said he published their advice in May, and the government has spent the past six months negotiating the idea.

The Liberal government had promised to release its strategy by the end of the year, but hoped to do so before the recent UN climate conference in Egypt. can present its strategy at the United Nations Biodiversity Summit in Montreal next month.

This report by the Canadian Press was first published on November 24, 2022.