This summer, the Canadian government announced 141 climate resilience projects in 128 communities across the country, 13 of which are being developed in Nova Scotia.

These projects are being supported by $34.2 million from Green Municipal Fund’s Local Leadership for Climate Adaptation Initiative.

The City of Halifax recently received more than $750,000 to place public drinking fountains and cooling areas with shade in 16 different park spaces across the municipality.

“If you see the trends of what’s happening like in Western Canada with the British Columbia heat dome, HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality), Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada have an opportunity to try and get ahead, and learn from the lessons of what happened with all those unfortunate deaths from overheating a number of years ago," said Shannon Miedema, Halifax MP.

"[We are] trying to think about the policy changes that we need, [and] the pieces of infrastructure that we need to make sure people are safe and comfortable as we warm.”

The Weather Network's chief meteorologist, Christ Scott, says heat waves similar to the B.C. event could still have theoretically happened if there were no greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity. However, conditions would have been two degrees cooler.

“Now, that may not seem like much, but it’s important because these thresholds, when you get one or two degrees higher, you start to see infrastructure breaking, you start to see many more severe health impacts. So, that’s the problem with climate change," said Scott.

"We get extreme weather. We’ve always had extremes [and] we’re always going to have extremes. Climate change changes the nature of the extremes, and eventually, starts to push up against our capacity to deal with it.”

The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that every dollar spent on climate resilience measures in Canada can save up to $15 in the long term.

Thumbnail courtesy of Getty Images/Shaunl/486845192-170667a.