With devastating hurricanes hitting the Caribbean islands and southern United States, massive wildfires displacing thousands in northern Manitoba and British Columbia and catastrophic flooding in India and Bangladesh killing more than 1,200 people, many Canadians are understandably anxious about what’s to come.

Climate scientists have long warned that the intensity, duration and frequency of extreme weather events will be greatly exacerbated in coming years and decades.

Yet Canada, which warmed at about twice the global average between 1948 and 2007, is still almost entirely unprepared for the impacts of those events, according to experts.

“Generally speaking, Canadian cities are not prepared for increasing disasters due to climate change,” Nirupama Agrawal, associate professor of disaster and emergency management at Toronto’s York University, told DeSmog Canada.

The window for affordable preventive action is rapidly closing.

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy estimated in a 2011 report that every dollar spent now on adaptation will result in $9 to $38 worth of avoided damages.

“The benefits are very high compared to the costs,” said Hank Venema, planning director at the Winnipeg-based Prairie Climate Centre. “But it’s different than the way that governments have traditionally viewed these kinds of expenditures: they’ve looked upon it as just capital expense and not risk reduction and rural economic development and habitat benefit.”

This also applies to wildfire prevention. The Canadian Forest Service has significantly cut staff numbers in recent years, with less than eight per cent of the service’s research money directed to fire research. Mike Flannigan — professor of fire management systems at the University of Alberta — also stressed in a recent article for Huffington Post that Canadian fire science has been underfunded for decades.

As noted in a 2016 federal auditor general’s report, the six previous years of funding from the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (released to provinces and territories after a large-scale and costly disaster has happened) had far outweighed the previous 39 fiscal years of the program’s operations.

It will only get worse.

A police car sits partially submerged as the water recedes in the 2013 Calgary flood. Photo: Colby Stopa via Flickr

Top Risk? Flooding

Canadian climate mitigation and adaptation experts are most concerned about flooding — it kicks off almost every conversation with people concerned about the subject.

“Despite numerous floods in the past 20 years, I don’t see much progress in preparedness of Canadian cities,” Agrawal said.

There have been small improvements, usually administered in the wake of a disaster.

High River, just south of Calgary, has spent $400 million since the 2013 floods to upgrade sewer lines and build barriers between the river and town. In addition, Calgary has invested $150 million in flood mitigation measures, with another $92 million from the province.

But it’s still not nearly enough.

The $432-million Springbank dam, designed to protect Calgary from the Elbow River overflowing and flooding, is mired in controversy and may not be finished for a decade. In addition, Calgary continues to rely on TransAlta’s Ghost River dam for protection from the Bow River — but it would only remove some 20 per cent of the water quantity that hit Calgary in the 2013 floods.

To be sure, the actual emergency preparedness and response to flooding is often quite good, with high scores given to most provinces reviewed in a recent report by the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation. In addition, the federal government recently made a $40 million investment for the National Research Council to update the building code to prepare new buildings for climate change.

In other words: Canada is relatively ready to respond to catastrophes, but not to prevent them in the first place.

“There’s a misguided focus on short term strategies, such as response, rather than long-term focus on loss prevention measures,” Agrawal said.

Homeowners Resist Floodplain Mapping, Fear Property Value Loss

There are a number of key failures on this front, including a lack of home-adaptation audit program, limited availability for overland residential insurance and ancient stormwater drainage infrastructure.

Perhaps the most shocking is Canada’s lack of up-to-date floodplain mapping, used to predict where waters will reach in the case of various levels of flooding.

In 1996, the federal Liberals shuttered Environment Canada’s Flood Damage Reduction Program. The country hasn’t had a sustained floodplain mapping program since. That means that we don’t really know which homes and buildings will be hit.

As a result, it’s allowed for what Agrawal called “rapid and unplanned urban development in floodplain and high risk areas that are not fit for human settlement.”

Instead of acquiring vulnerable properties and converting them into wetlands and parks that help enhance flood resilience, many cities have effectively ignored the very existence of the problem and allowed continued development in floodplains.

There’s a bizarre financial incentive to this too.

Blair Feltmate, head of the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, recently told the 2017 Flood Risk Summit: “Governments that would support developing floodplain maps would take a lot of heat from current homeowners, who may be now identified as being in a floodplain. All of a sudden you have a $1 million home that is stigmatized and devalued down to half its current value, where it’s unsellable.”

While some cities and provinces (such as Toronto and Newfoundland) have embarked on floodplain mapping on their own, it’s been conducted without any federal standards or guidelines. That leaves only 65 per cent of Canadian residences mapped, with 50 per cent of current maps without updating since 1996.

In March, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced the federal government would restart the process of floodplain mapping with the private sector, but it’s unclear what that will specifically look like.

Flooding in St. Vital park, Winnipeg 2011. Photo: steve via Flickr

Canada Faces Dangerous Mix of Floods and Droughts

That makes it very tricky to plan for natural infrastructure like wetlands and artificial infrastructure like diversion channels. It’s also a very costly form of ignorance: for example, the Manitoba Red River Floodway (which cost only $63 million to build) has saved Winnipeg over $40 billion in flood damages.

But there’s a flipside to that kind of highly successful water management strategy.

Venema noted that Canada doesn’t tend to manage flood and drought risk in an integrated fashion, with the main focus on draining the water as quickly as possible. But the real risk of climate change, he said, is “this higher-frequency oscillation between both hydrological extremes. We’re going to get shocked on both ends of the hydrological spectrum.”

That’s water geek talk for: we’re going to get hit with both floods and droughts.

Instead, he recommended that governments should be planning to retain water in small-scale storage facilities to minimize flood risk downstream while ensuring that water is available in times of drought.

“We’re exposed to these risks all the time,” he said. “Provincial water strategies should embrace the logic of multi-functional storage immediately. The economic case for doing so is already high and when you factor in climate risk it becomes overwhelming.”

This isn’t a new idea.

In the aftermath of the brutal Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the Canadian government established the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, which later became a branch of Agriculture Canada, to build small water retention structures across the Prairies. The entire point was to promote water security, flood risk reduction and drought risk reduction.

In 2013 — the same year that it shut down the renown National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy — the federal Conservatives dismantled the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration.

What Canada Needs to Do Now (But Isn’t) to Prevent the Worst Impacts of #ClimateChange https://t.co/UmcVOuKquV @james_m_wilt #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 21, 2017

Spend Now to Save Later

At heart of many of these issues is an apparent unwillingness by governments to spend money now to receive significant gains later.

Seriously addressing climate change will mean a renewed commitment to slashing greenhouse gas emissions via a rapid transition to low-carbon electricity generation, building heating, transportation and industrial processes.

While emissions trends for many sectors are stabilizing or curving downwards, fossil fuel megaprojects such as Alberta’s Athabasca oilsands and liquefied natural gas export terminals on the West Coast will likely prevent Canada from coming remotely close to meeting its international climate commitments.

Growing concern about climate change has meant those projects are hotly contested by the general public.

At the moment, the federal government is starting to implement significant greenhouse gas reduction policies including a mandatory carbon price, coal phase-out, now-delayed methane reductions, net-zero building codes and zero-emissions vehicle strategy.

That’s not the case with climate adaptation. In the 2017 federal budget, the government allocated $2 billion for a Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. While that might seem like a lot, the investment will be spread out over 11 years.

That translates to a meagre $181 million per year.

As Feltmate of the Intact Centre of Climate Adaptation noted in a 2014 op-ed for the Globe and Mail, “With the same enthusiasm originally devoted to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, Canada needs to embrace adaptation now to avoid ongoing management by disaster scenarios.”

It appears beyond clear that mitigating and adapting to the new realities of climate change will require massive direct investments by every level of government, as well as entire fleets of expert panels, public consultations, educational campaigns and cabinet talking points.

Based on recent precedents, such a response doesn’t seem particularly likely.

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The issue of loss and damage has emerged as one of the top issues for negotiators at the Paris climate talks.

Swedish and Bolivian ministers have been leading the discussions on loss and damage, trying to iron out the issues.

But big polluters and wealthy nations refuse to be held liable for compensating climate-vulnerable nations for future impacts of climate change.

So what exactly does ‘loss and damage’ mean and why is everyone talking about it? And most critically, will we see a deal that everyone can agree to by the end of the week?

What is loss and damage?

There are some impacts of climate change to which it will not be possible to adapt – instead, we will be faced with residual ‘loss and damage’. This is when the efforts to try and mitigate or adapt to the impacts of climate change are not enough. Examples include Peoples and communities obliged to leave their countries and homes permanently; or the losses associated with destroyed ecosystems.

Those countries facing such impacts argue that there should be a specific stream of work to deal with them, referenced within the Paris agreement. Resistance comes from big polluters, who fear that establishing such provisions will open the door to future compensation claims.

So what’s the status of loss and damage going into the second week?

For small island states and some of the least developed countries, the question of loss and damage has become one of the most important aspects of the climate negotiations.

Tied into this discussion are other key elements of the Paris deal including climate finance for mitigation and adaptation as well as trying to keep the mention of an ambitious 1.5C global warming target in the text. The logic is that, if addressed, these issues on ambition and finance would mean countries hopefully wouldn’t suffer as much loss and damage.

At the end of the first week of climate negotiations one of the key issues was where loss and damage will be placed in the Paris package.

Developing countries want it in the binding agreement that is expected to form the core of this package. But some rich nations have been pushing for it to be included in a set of accompanying decisions that will not have legal force.

In a recent version of the text submitted on Saturday December 5th there were two proposals laid out for loss and damage.

The first option, proposed by the G77 – which has been described as a strong proposal – outlines a process mechanism for how to deal with issues such as displacement as well as permanent and irreversible loss and damage.

The second option is weaker “but if we have [both] on the table they’re both good to move forward on” described Julie-Anne Richards, international policy manager at Climate Justice Programme.

Sven Harmeling, CARE International’s climate change advocacy coordinator, described the text as “something technically manageable” adding that there have been improvements throughout the first week.

The issue of loss and damage has in the past provoked heated arguments and walkouts at previous conferences. For example, at COP19 in Warsaw in 2013, discussions over the issue broke down and the poorer countries walked out. An international mechanism on Loss and Damage did however emerge out of the Warsaw talks and it’s hoped this will be included in the Paris deal in some way.

“In terms of substance, this proposal would put the Warsaw international mechanism more at the centre and not establish a new one… It would provide a framework for going forward without defining what exactly needs to happen,” Harmeling explained. “If parties start to engage on that basis then I’m more optimistic we’ll get something useful.”

So what do the wealthy nations think?

The idea that developed nations bear a responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations for those extreme climate events which they cannot adapt to is very controversial for wealthier nations.

Many such as the US and EU are concerned that if liability and compensation were linked to this, it could become a massive legal and financial headache.

Both the UK and US have confirmed here in Paris that they will not accept the notion of ‘compensation and liability’ to be included in a climate deal

However, as with the nature of negotiations, compromises are struck. Ahead of the Paris summit, developing nations agreed to drop contentious words like compensation and liability. “The idea was to engage very constructively,” said Harjeet Singh of ActionAid.

This helped Washington and the European Union to recognise the importance of including loss and damage in the outcome of the Paris talks – but how to do that remains a sticking point.

Todd Stern, US special envoy on climate change, told reporters in Paris last week that the US accepts the concerns of vulnerable nations on this issue.

“We’re a supporter of dealing with loss and damage in an effective way,” he said. “We are working in a very co-operative and constructive way right with both the islands and the G77 on developing an outcome and a solution here, there are many players in this but we have been very engaged on this issue.”

“There’s one thing we don’t accept and won’t accept in this agreement,” he added, “and that’s the notion that there should be liability and compensation for loss and damage. In that regard we’re in the exact same place as virtually all developed countries.”

What can we expect going forward?

As the second week progresses many are optimistic that loss and damage will be inserted in the main body of the agreement.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, described the “landing ground” as “some reference in the core agreement so it’s clear this is a core part of the agreement going forward.”

Meyer added that there is also a process underway to get the Warsaw mechanism reviewed and expanded upon during the next COP22 meeting in Morocco 2016.

Given that the issue of loss and damage is “younger” compared to discussions on mitigation and adaptation as E3G describes, any mention in the text is likely to be “brief and to the point”.

But we’re “at a very very critical moment” warned ActionAid’s Singh on the morning of Tuesday December 8. “This is a real life issue it is not a bargaining chip.”

Singh criticised the US for bringing the issue of ‘compensation’ back into the discussions after developing countries agreed to let that go in September.

“We don’t have time for any bargaining tricks, he said, adding it’s time to “engage really meaningfully” on issues such as displacement and permanent loss and damage.

“We’ve seen the Syrian refugee crisis and we have heard how it was [partly] fuelled by climate change. That was just a preview. We are going to see a lot more such realities and we need to prepare for that.”

Maina Talia, part of Vaitupu Island Youth and Tuvalu CAN emphasised the existential risk faced by the most vulnerable nations whose land is being devoured by the sea.

“I want to stress the connection between us and the land,” he said at a side-event in Paris. “There is a concept back home called ‘Fanua’. That same word we give to the land is the same word we give to the placenta to a mother.”

“If you give birth on the island we bury the fanua and plant a coconut tree on top signifying our connectivity to the land…this is how important it is for us not to go, not to leave…because we are connected, we are rooted to the land.”

“If we are to leave Tuvalu, it will become very different for a nation like Tuvalu to exist within another nation.”

He continued: “The loss of cultural heritage for us simply equals to death…losing someone’s culture and losing someone’s tradition simply equals to death.”

This post also appears on Energydesk.

Photo: UNESCO Jakarta via Flickr

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A new series looking at the likely impacts of climate change could help companies, politicians, financial planners, entrepreneurs, defence analysts and leaders of various industrial sectors learn how to adapt to the increasing pressures of global warming.

Based on work already done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) announced Thursday it had released a briefing series so that people, organizations and governments would be better prepared for a challenging and volatile future.

Working with the Judge Business School and the European Climate Foundation, the CISL series summarizes the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture, buildings, cities, defence, employment, energy, investment, fisheries, primary industries, tourism, and transportation.

Among the topics addressed, the series looks at the urgency of protecting people
in urban areas from climate change impacts, the potential for the energy sector to reduce emissions by switching to lower-carbon fuels, improving energy efficiency and introducing carbon capture and storage, the disruptive impacts global warming will have on the financial system, potential losses to global fisheries of up to $40 billion by mid-century, the way climate change acts as a “threat multiplier,” driving involuntary migration and indirectly increasing the risks of violent conflict, and the need for additional energy supply investments of between $190-900 billion per year from now until 2050.

The series, which includes numerous infographics, also looks at the capacity for various sectors to adapt to climate change and to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Between 10 and 12 per cent of man-made GHG emissions in 2010 came from the agricultural sector, which is increasingly threatened by a warming climate. Click image to enlarge.

According to CISL "there is potential for energy savings of 50-90 per cent in existing and new buildings." Click image to enlarge.

More than half the world's population now lives in cities, making urban areas more important than ever for climate change adaptation. Click image to enlarge.

Defense will play an increasingly important role in responding to climate change. Click image to enlarge.

Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, said in an accompanying media release that he endorsed the series.

“I applaud this initiative,” Pachauri said. “Spelling out the implications of climate change for different sectors, on the basis of the work of the IPCC, will allow businesses to adapt to the challenges they face and understand the role they are able to play in reducing their climate impact.”

Polly Courtice, Director of CISL, said that understanding the science of climate change is absolutely vital. “This series does a remarkable job of taking the hugely-complex and technical findings of the IPCC report and translating them for business.”

According to CISL, the impacts of climate change threaten the employment sector, while mitigating climate change and adapting to its effects will create employment opportunities. Click image to enlarge.

Carbon capture and storage, limiting use, greater efficiency and a greater use of renewables are all ways to reduce energy emissions. Click image to enlarge.

GHGs from industry nearly doubled between 1970 and 2010 and the sector is anticipating a 45-60 percent increase in global demand for industry products by 2050. Click image to enlarge.

An estimated investment of USD $190-$900 billion a year to 2050 is needed for the energy sector to keep temperatures from rising 2C. An estimated $340 billion was invested in reducing GHG emissions in 2011/2012. Click image to enlarge.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the series infographics translate the sometimes complex science into compelling visuals and narratives. “They underline why we need a meaningful agreement in Paris in 2015 — one that can put in the pathways that will dramatically bend down the emissions curve, trigger a deep de-carbonization of the global economy and realize a climate neutral world in the second half of the century.”

As an example of how the series explores likely climate change impacts in different sectors, the briefing on agriculture addresses reduced crop yields and predicted food price rises of 37 per cent (rice), 55 per cent (maize), and 11 per cent (wheat) by 2050.

Turning to mitigation, the briefing notes that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture comprised about 10 – 12 per cent of man-made GHG emissions
in 2010. “This is the largest contribution from any
sector of non-carbon dioxide (CO2) GHGs such as methane, accounting for 56 per cent of non-CO2 emissions in 2005. The agricultural sector has significant potential to make cuts in GHG emissions.”

The world's oceans have seen roughly a 30 per cent increase in acidity since pre-industrial times. Click image to enlarge.

Forests, lakes, rivers, snow, and biodiversity are all affected by climate change, which is expected to impact all sub-sectors of the tourism industry. Click image to enlarge.

Nearly 25 per cent of energy-related emissions come from the transport sector and that contribution is expected to rise more than any other energy-related sector. Click image to enlarge.

In terms of adaptation, the briefing says no single approach for reducing risk is appropriate across all regions, sectors, and settings. “Farmers can adapt to some changes, but there is a limit to what can be managed. Agricultural companies can draw from a range of options to maximize adaptive capacity based on a solid understanding of risks.”

The briefing document then lists various options — supply, demand, livestock, policy and crops — to help those employed in the agricultural sector deal with future climate change.

All images from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

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