Canada needs a national tracking system to better fight climate change. Here’s why
Global News
The deadly wildfires and fall flooding in British Columbia are just the latest examples of climate change's impact on Canadian society, experts say.
A new report suggests Canada is not doing enough to adapt to and prevent the effects of climate change and is lacking the critical data it needs to do so.
“I mean, 2021 has really now been a wake-up call that these are no longer sort of one-off anomalies, but this is sort of new patterns,” said Scott Vaughan, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and chair of a climate adaptation expert panel that produced the report.
He says the 2021 heat wave, deadly wildfires and fall flooding in British Columbia are just the latest examples of the massive human and economic costs climate change is bringing with it and how ill-prepared we are to both prevent it and respond to it.
There are many possible solutions, including inexpensive homeowner fixes that can prevent basement flooding and better withstand fires, to more drastic and expensive planned relocations of people out of areas at high risk of a flood or wildfire.
But the panel says making decisions is difficult if all the data on risk isn’t presented in a comprehensive and accessible format so politicians, local officials and individuals can make informed decisions on what they’re likely facing, and what they can do about it.
The panel was commissioned by the Canadian Council of Academies, after it was asked by Public Safety Canada to answer questions about how Canada can be more efficient at both disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
Canada is in the midst of preparing a national adaptation strategy, promised by the Liberals by the end of this year.
Disaster risk reduction is typically a more immediate response to prepare for a known threat and respond after it happens. Climate change adaptation is longer-term in its thinking, involving investments that set people and structures up better to withstand the harder and more frequent hits from floods, fires, heat waves and major storms.