‘Prompt and thoughtful action’ only way through climate disasters, says report

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Climate change is going to cost Canadians one way or another, but a new report looks at what government can do, and how much it should spend to help its people adapt.

The Council of Canadian Academies says, for one, it will take prompt and thoughtful action in order to help Canadians avoid the damages of climate change over the next two decades.

It will also take a lot of cold-hard-cash.

“The Panel identified 12 major areas of climate change risk facing Canada from a national perspective, all of which could involve significant losses, damages, or disruptions over the next 20 years,” the report reads.

Of the dozens of different threats posed by climate change, academics and researchers have narrowed down their list to just six top areas, but the biggest for Canadians is to the country’s infrastructure and to its food system — specifically agriculture threatened by droughts.

Extreme weather events have the potential to impact homes, buildings, and entire communities, the report notes, adding there is ” increased probability of power outages and grid failures; and an increasing risk of cascading infrastructure failures.”

In addition, the report says “Climate variability will challenge the business model of farms by increasing the uncertainty associated with the range of future conditions a farmer can expect.”

Read the full report below:

Report-Canada-top-climate-change-risks

John Leggat chaired the panel of experts that wrote the final report. He says the more money put into mitigation and adaptation, the better because the cost of a potential response to climate events and subsequent recovery is always much higher.

“The whole idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, put resources into mitigation and put resources into adaptation so that one reduces the risk significantly,” says Leggat.

Farmers may need to switch to drought-resistance crops, or entirely to greenhouse growing, if they want to adapt.

The study also finds the water levels in the Great Lakes are dropping, affecting shipping routes.

Meantime, glacier melt is threatening B.C.’s hydro power, and as sea levels continue to rise, they’ll also cause coastal erosion along the way, inundating some areas with saltwater.

This would mean communities along the coast will need to look at installing dikes and other defenses, which all come with added costs. In the north, people may have to go back to hunting and gathering — their traditional ways of survival.

According to the research, a 2011 study put potential costs to Canadian businesses and the economy between $21 and $43 billion per year, depending on emissions, as well as economic and population growth.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, which makes recommendations on how the government should spend money, requested the report.

It says climate change risks can be meaningfully mitigated, but admits none are entirely avoidable.

The report lays out how adaptation will cost all levels of government, significantly, but not nearly as much as doing nothing would.

The risks that can more easily be mitigated, highlighted by the council, are physical infrastructure, health impacts, and governance issues. The hardest have been identified as risks to fisheries, forestry, the ecosystem, and wildlife.

The “Canada’s Top Climate Change Risks” report was compiled by a panel of economists, scientists, doctors and catastrophe experts.

-With files from The Canadian Press

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