Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy

Dominique Barker: Welcome to The Sustainability Agenda, a podcast series focusing on the evolving complexities of the sustainability landscape with a view on addressing current issues in a concise format to help you navigate and take action. I’m your host, Dominique Barker. Please join me as we explore today’s most pressing matters with special guests that will give you some new perspective and help you make sense of what really matters.

Craig Stewart: There’s a lot of interest in this topic but it can be overwhelming. It’s an issue that affects people very differently depending on where they are. That complexity is the main barrier. How do we prioritize, how do we pick a few things to focus on in the near term and do those well instead of trying to, as the phrase is, “boil the ocean” and try to do too much at once?

Dominique Barker: Canada’s climate is warming rapidly, two times faster than the global average and three times faster in the north. Canadians are already experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change, like extreme weather, flooding, wildfires and coastal erosion. And we saw a lot of that this summer. To help tackle this challenge, the Government of Canada is developing Canada’s first national adaptation strategy. The strategy will outline how the Canadian economy and society can be more resilient and prepared for the impacts of climate change. It’s going to strengthen and change the way we improve health outcomes, build and maintain infrastructure, steward the environment, support a strong economy and reduce the risk of climate related disasters. The strategy will include a national monitoring and evaluation system to measure progress and deliver outcomes for increased collaboration toward a safer and more resilient future. Today, I am very pleased we’ve got a big cast here today. We’ve got Craig Stewart, who’s Vice-President for Climate Change and Federal Issues at the Insurance Bureau of Canada. And we’ve got Dr. Blair Feltmate, Head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, who agreed to share their thoughts on Canada’s forthcoming national adaptation strategy. Or NAS, in short. And finally, we’ve got Natalia Moudrak, Managing Director and Climate Resiliency Leader at Aon Public Sector Partnership, who’s also going to be helping me on this podcast. She’s going to be co interviewing and you’ve heard her on this podcast before, so please feel free to look at the catalogue and take a look at the impact on how the role of insurance can play in cleantech. She’s going to be my co-host today, having worked with both Craig and Blair on a range of climate adaptation initiatives in the past and in her current capacity as a member of the Climate Proof Canada Coalition. So we’ve asked Craig and Blair to explain to our listeners what the national adaptation strategy is, why it’s being created, who should be paying attention to its development, and whether it’s going to have global relevance as we head into COP27. So thank you all for joining us today. So to start, Craig, what is the National Adaptation Strategy or NAS and how is the Insurance Bureau of Canada involved in helping inform its development?

Craig Stewart: Thanks, Dominique, and it’s lovely to be on the show today. Thank you for the invitation. So Canada, like other countries around the world, have made a commitment to table a national adaptation strategy at COP27 in Egypt this year. So we have an international commitment to develop an adaptation strategy, which is meant to be a national game plan to help Canadians and their governments address these extreme weather events that we’re already experiencing. Floods, wildfires, extreme heat, as well as some of those longer term slow onset events like drought and sea level rise. IBC is working with our partners at Climate Proof Canada essentially to inform that strategy. We’re providing policy research, frankly, some pretty deep thinking on how Canada can be world leading in delivering a national adaptation strategy in the very short term.

Dominique Barker: Great. And so then what are the most essential elements in the adaptation policy making? Many of us won’t really know what needs to go in and how well does the national adaptation strategy incorporate those elements?

Craig Stewart: So the strategy is still in development, but what we’re pushing for is a few things. One, we want this to be a series of five year plans. We don’t want sort of a long term, 2050 sort of mid-century goal to drive the process. We really want to say, how are we going to roll up our sleeves and get to work to do, to deliver real change in the next five years? Second piece is targets where we’re focused on how can we set targets? So if we have 800,000 Canadians at risk of flooding, can we protect 30% of them by 2028? How can we get very specific and then set targets that the federal government, provinces and the private sector can all collaborate in achieving in the short term? So those are two of the key elements that we’re looking for in the strategy.

Natalia Moudrak: Blair, you spend a lot of time at the Intact Centre developing practical approaches to help Canadians limit extreme weather risk and proactively adapt to climate change. My question to you is this, from the standpoint of disaster risk reduction, what should the national adaptation strategy focus on first and foremost and why?

Blair Feltmate: Yeah, so just expanding a little bit on points that Craig raised, there will be three primary areas of focus within the national adaptation strategy. Flood risk mitigation, wildfire risk mitigation and extreme heat risk mitigation. And the first two, focusing on flood and focusing on wildfire. The reason we want to focus on those two perils in particular is that when they are the most financially costly to the country. For example, the number one cost to Canada in terms of extreme weather risk is too much water in the wrong place, basements flooding. But we know a lot of what can be done, actions that homeowners can take around the outside of their house and in the basement itself to lower the probability that when the big storms hit, that basement will fill with water. So in the national adaptation strategy, we want to get that information rolled out to Canadian homeowners en masse. Similarly for homes in what’s called the wildland urban interface, which is a fancy way of saying forests, there are actions that you can take around the home to limit the probability that when the fire comes to a region, that that house will burn down. It could be an aluminum roof on the house so that when embers land on it, the roof doesn’t ignite and burn the house down. It could be cladding on the house that’s heatproof or fireproof that if fire got up to the side of the house it doesn’t ignite and subsequently burn down the house. There’s a multitude of initiatives along those lines, both for flooding and fire at the level of the house that are really going to be table stakes, if you will, I think for the National Adaptation Strategy, for forward movement on protection of Canadians from extreme weather risk. And then the other area that’s not financially costly, but when things go wrong, it certainly is the most challenging for the country, at least in my view, is extreme heat. When things go wrong relative to extreme heat, people actually die. Disproportionately it tends to be the elderly living alone who are financially challenged in the back of a rooming house somewhere. That’s going to be one key area that we focus on is how do we identify where these people are, track them during an extreme heat event and make sure somebody’s checking on them during the heat event so that, you know, are they properly hydrated? Do they have a fan? Do they need a trip to a cooling centre, that sort of thing? So my point here being that relative to flood wildfire and extreme heat risk, there’s a number of things we can do in the short term. Push through the national adaptation strategy that can really help to ensure the safety of Canadians.

Dominique Barker: And that all sounds really practical. Craig, let’s get back to you. How is this effort to develop the national adaptation strategy different from previous initiatives? And I’ll admit Natalia helped with the podcast questions today, and I understand that there was something called the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change that was established in 2016. What do you foresee to be some of the key challenges or barriers to achieving the NAS objectives?

Craig Stewart: So, so this effort is different. It builds upon success and the efforts of the pan-Canadian framework on climate change that did have an adaptation chapter or pillar to it. However, it was a very sort of diffuse effort. Despite Blair and my suggestions, it did not have a concerted game plan on, for instance, flood or extreme heat or wildfire. And unfortunately, we’ve paid the price for not having those game plans in place in recent years, and hopefully the national adaptation strategy will fix that. It will have very specific action plans tied to each of those perils. As far as what are the key challenges, though? Adaptation can be complex. It can be overwhelming. You know, when Environment Canada developed the, you know, they went out for consultation this summer around the national adaptation strategy and they had, I think, 850 submissions on what it should include. There’s a lot of people affected by severe weather. There’s a lot of people that are affected by climate change. There’s a lot of interest in this topic but it can be overwhelming. It’s an issue that affects people very differently depending on where they are. That complexity is the main barrier. How do we prioritize, how do we pick a few things to focus on in the near term and do those well instead of trying to, as the phrase is, “boil the ocean” and try to do too much at once? That is probably the biggest barrier that we’re facing.

Natalia Moudrak: Blair, piggybacking on the theme of the previous question, some people may worry that we’re spending a lot of time and effort in Canada on strategic endeavours and consultations and perhaps not enough time on taking action on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Would you agree with the statement today?

Blair Feltmate: Not really. I would have three or four years ago. I would say it’s in the last two or three years in Canada with floods that have been occurring on great scale, fires, extreme heat events, etc., and not just happening in Canada, happening in the US, happening around the world. I think there’s been a change in religion, if you will, on the climate file such that, yes, we still want to focus on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and that’s important. But we also understand now that climate change is irreversible. Period. Climate change is here to stay. We’re not going backwards on climate change. Extreme weather events are going to get more challenging going forward. And in the last few years, I think that’s really come to bear with many people now understand that point. So we’re working quite aggressively to figure out, practically speaking, what can we actually do to put systems in place to mitigate the risk? And I would say that’s really gained considerable momentum in the last two or three years.

Natalia Moudrak: Blair, I know you also spent a lot of time with financial regulators and capital markets discussing the need for physical climate risk management. So what’s the so what message you would share with our capital markets listeners as it relates to the national adaptation strategy? Why should they care?

Blair Feltmate: Well, it’s probably a longer term play here, but the capital markets must appreciate the importance of maintaining electricity supply, water supply, wastewater treatment facilities, transport systems, housing stock, etc.. Or you have no viable community in which businesses can operate and employees can live. Effectively, a functioning economy is key to limiting risk and ensuring the viability of companies that investors may invest in. And that is at the heart of this. You know, we really with without a well-functioning economy, the capital markets really have a vacuum into which to invest.

Dominique Barker: Craig, last question for you. Some of our listeners may be heading to Egypt in November for COP27 and I’ll be there. What story should we be sharing there regarding Canada’s efforts on climate adaptation? What advice would you give me as our 30 second elevator pitch?

Craig Stewart: So adaptation day at COP27 will be November 12th. Canada will be organizing a Canada Pavilion and I’ll actually be moderating a panel at the Canada Pavilion on this subject. And the message that we hope to share at that event is that Canada is world leading in its national adaptation strategy, that we’re the first in the world to develop targets as part of our strategy and in a concise game plan to reduce risk against those targets as we’ve talked about. Right now, it’s not just Canada. Nations around the world are struggling to, you know, to come up with concise game plans like this. We’re struggling to create a global goal on adaptation that’s equivalent to net zero. We’re hoping that we can say Canada is forging a path that others can also emulate.

Dominique Barker: Well, let’s hope so. Blair, Craig, Natalia, thank you so much for joining us. Natalia, thank you very much for co-hosting today’s and thank you to those of you who will be at COP27 delivering that message, which I hope will be happening. Thank you.

Blair Feltmate: Thank you very much.

Craig Stewart: Thank you.

Dominique Barker: Please join us next time as we tackle some of sustainability’s biggest questions, providing different perspectives to help you move forward. I’m your host, Dominique Barker and this is The Sustainability Agenda.

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