Hard Choices: Climate Change in Canada

8 Regional Adaptation Strategies

151 8 5 Regional Adaptation Strategies Stewart Cohen, Brad Bass, David Etkin, Brenda Jones, Jacinthe Lacroix, Brian Mills, Daniel Scott, and G. Cornelis van Kooten* * Opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of Canada. D uring 2001, a bark beetle outbreak in British Columbia continued because of extensive fire controls and four years of warm winters, killing lodgepole pine trees in an 8 million hectare area (Reuters, 2001; Morton, 2002).Toronto declared a heat emergency on August 7, while Ontario’s daily electricity consumption exceeded 25,000 megawatts for the first time (City of Toronto, 2001; Abbate, 2001). Hunters in Iqaluit noticed that the past few years had been getting warmer and that it takes longer for the ice to form (cbc News, Iqaluit, 2001). Golf courses in southern Ontario were open in December, but ski hills were not (Avery, 2001; Rubin, 2001). An economist with the CanadianWheat Board estimated a cost of $5 billion for a drought-related 10-million-tonne loss in grain yield (Canadian Press, 2001), while Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Nova Scotia received a total of $3 million in federal drought aid (Brooks, 2001) on top of crop insurance payments . Alberta was considering (again) water transfers from the northern to the southern half of the province, as the government expressed concern about the potential economic impacts of water shortages (Olsen, 2001). In Edmonton alone, the drought of 2001 was reported to have resulted in $4.1 million in damage to trees, shrubs, and sports fields, and an expansion of local watering programs was suggested (Ward, 2002). These are climate impact and adaptation stories from 2001, a warm year among many warm years that have been observed during the last 50 years (see chap. 2). As for the climate itself, the winter of 2001–02 was the nineteenth consecutive season of above-normal temperatures in Canada (Environment Canada, 2002). The past decade has witnessed several costly extreme events, including the 1998 ice storm in Ontario and Quebec, the Red River and Saguenay floods, and the 2001 Toronto Heat Emergency (Etkin, 1998; Kerry et al., 1999; ijc, 2000; City of Toronto, 2002). Although recent extreme events cannot be directly attributed to global warming, extreme event frequencies may increase in a future warmer world, leading to more stories like these, and perhaps to more serious challenges as well. Some have argued that warming would be a good thing for a cold country like Canada, but others point to potential ecological and economic disruptions, health impacts, and changing international pressures resulting from the worldwide effects of warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc) recently concluded that climate change damages would become more pervasive and more costly if warming exceeds a few degrees (ipcc, 2001b).What will happen to Canada and other countries if emission reduction measures are not successful at preventing “dangerous” climate change? In this chapter, we discuss climate change adaptation in the Canadian context (see chap. 3 for review of global scale concerns and chap. 4 for an overview of projected impacts in Canada). The approach of this chapter is to tell the story of adaptation experiences and future challenges through a series of vignettes. Although many analyses of climate change science and mitigation at national and global levels have been presented in an aggregated way, it is difficult to use that approach when considering climaterelated impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities (economic, institutional , social), and potential options for future response. Adaptation will take place “on the ground” on a regional and local scale. Adapters will be influenced by national and global responses to climate change, but the success of future adaptation measures will depend on regional and local actors, and the perceptions and constraints within which they operate. What Is Canada’s Adaptation Challenge? Adaptation is defined as an adjustment of a system to an actual or expected stimulus or its impacts. Adaptation is not a new concept (Smit et al., 1999). It is a conscious ongoing process of monitoring, evaluating, and learning to make decisions. These decisions might involve changes to processes, practices, or structures to reduce potential vulnerabilities and damages, or to take advantage of new opportunities that may emerge. Climate adaptation depends on the adaptive capacity of a system, whether it be an ecosys152 What Can We Do? tem, human settlement, or a country. A country’s...