Canadians have their say about how best to adapt to climate change
With flooding emergencies in parts of Western and Northern Canada, the federal government wants to hear from Canadians about how to adapt to such climate-related disasters.
Ottawa is in the final stages of completing the country's first-ever national adaptation strategy. On Monday, it launched a public engagement process to hear from Canadians on how communities and businesses will live with and minimize the impacts of floods, heat domes, wildfires and similar disasters.
In a news release, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault called adapting to climate change "a two-front war," where businesses and communities must "play both offence and defence" to lower emissions, but also find ways to lessen the current and future impacts of global warming.
Canadians have witnessed all sorts of severe weather in recent years. Last summer, extreme heat in B.C fuelled a deadly heat wave, followed by forest fires that destroyed the town of Lytton, B.C. Relentless rain then pounded southern B.C. in November, flooding communities and washing away roads and bridges.
More recently, record flooding in central and southern Manitoba has put the issue of climate adaptation front and centre.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has called adapting to climate change 'a two-front war' that requires businesses and communities to both lower emissions and adapt to future impacts of global warming. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito)
MAKING COMMUNITIES MORE RESILIENT
The government is framing the launch of its three-month online consultation with these disasters in mind.
A discussion paper released today as well suggests some things that could be included in the government's adaptation plan: relocating people from high-flood-risk areas; standardizing the emergency alert system; expanding the network of first responders; and investing in equipment and designing roads, railways and other infrastructure to be more resilient.
Although the discussion paper doesn't go into as much detail, it points to the health-care system and nature-based climate solutions, such as tree planting or restoring vegetation, as playing a role. There's also no mention of how much it will cost to make the changes required, or whether the public or private sector would absorb the costs.
Consultations end on July 15, and the government intends to release its final strategy in the fall.
This article, written by David Thurton, was originally published for CBC News.
Thumbnail credit: Jaison Empson/CBC