Question Period Note: Adaptation and climate resilience

Adaptation and climate resilience

•Climate impacts pose major risks to the health and well-being of Canadians, the economy, communities, and the natural environment.

• Canada is warming two times faster than the global average, and three times faster in the North.

• The federal government is providing Canadians with the science and data they need to understand how climate change affects them. This helps Canadians make decisions on how to protect their health, homes, businesses, and communities.

• Canada is also investing in major new initiatives, including $22 billion in green infrastructures, of which $9.2 billion is designated for bilateral agreements with provinces and territories. A portion of this funding will also invest in adaptation and climate resilience.

• This includes the launch of the $2-billion Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund to invest in the infrastructure required to build resilience to the effects of a changing climate—the most significant commitment in adaptation made by the federal government to date.

• Canada is also providing $260 million over five years to implement the federal Pan-Canadian Framework commitments on adaptation and climate resilience.

• The federal government is also continuing to establish provincial, territorial and municipal partnerships to advance new adaptation initiatives, and is demonstrating international leadership on climate adaptation.

• Taken together, these measures will make Canadians safer, and communities, infrastructure and businesses more resilient to climate change.

• Recognizing the importance of preparing for the impacts of climate change, climate change adaptation and resilience is one of the four pillars of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (PCF). Under the PCF process, there was strong consensus among all jurisdictions on the importance of climate resilience.

• Under the PCF, federal, provincial, and territorial governments worked collaboratively to identify new actions to build resilience to climate change across Canada in the following five areas:

1. Translating scientific information and Traditional Knowledge into action.
2. Building climate resilience through infrastructure.
3. Protecting and improving human health and well-being.
4. Supporting particularly vulnerable regions (e.g., the North, coastal regions).
5. Reducing climate-related hazards and disaster risks.

• The federal government made significant investments in climate change adaptation and resilience in Budget 2016 and Budget 2017. In 2016, the Government of Canada strengthened its domestic climate change adaptation funding with an investment of $129.5 million to seven federal departments and agencies for a suite of programs related to science, health, northern and Indigenous communities, and key economic sectors; $40 million for Canada’s National Research Council to develop climate-resilient building design guides and codes; and $75 million for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, part of which will support climate risk assessment and planning in communities.

• In Budget 2017, the federal government committed an additional $260 million over five years for a suite of 12 federal adaptation programs focused on information and capacity, climate-resilient infrastructure, human health and well-being, vulnerable regions, and climate-related hazards and disaster risks. This included providing funding to support Indigenous peoples in the design, implementation and expansion of long-term community-based climate monitoring projects through the Indigenous Community-Based Climate Monitoring Program.

• Since 2017, there have been several key developments to support the PCF commitment to translate scientific information into action, including the release of Canada’s Changing Climate Report and the launch of a new climate data portal (climatedata.ca) by the Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS). CCCS is administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).

• Resilient infrastructure was identified by federal, provincial and territorial officials as a priority area of action under the adaptation pillar of the Pan-Canadian Framework. In response, the federal government launched in 2018 the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF), a 10-year national program investing $2 billion in public infrastructure to mitigate the potential economic, environmental and social impacts of climate change, and to strengthen our resilience to disasters triggered by natural hazards and extreme weather events.

• The federal government will continue to work in partnership with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to help Canadians adapt to the effects of climate change, including through the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Policy Committee (chaired by ECCC), which now falls under the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME).

• The federal government is also demonstrating international leadership on adaptation as a convening nation and funding member of the Global Commission on Adaptation, a two-year international initiative launched in 2018 to raise the profile of climate change adaptation and catalyze concrete solutions. As part of this initiative, Canada is playing a leadership role in mobilizing political and private sector leadership to reduce climate risks, use nature-based solutions and increase ecological resilience.

Question Period notes as provided by the Department to the Minister’s Office