Abstracts

Responses to Climate Change Impacts: Canada in a Global Context

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun
ÉcoRessources Consultants
frederic.gagnon-lebrun@ecoressources.com

This study places Canada's initiatives to adapt to climate change since the mid-1990s into the broader context of policy responses by other developed countries. Adaptation to climate change can be conceived as the process of understanding potential climate changes, assessing related impacts, and designing and implementing policy responses, the ultimate goal of this process being "mainstreaming" responses to climate change by building them into routine economic development planning. Countries - as well as economic sectors and regions within countries - are at various stages in this process.

Among developed countries, Canada stands out as a leader in building climate scenarios and assessing potential impacts, but ranks average in terms of its policy responses.

This study shows that Canada pays relatively little attention to adaptation issues, as compared to mitigation issues, but that it has been increasingly giving more prominence to adaptation in recent years. Canada's adaptation initiatives have clearly focused on assessing potential climate impacts, rather than on planning adaptive responses although some impacts are already being felt. This places Canada middle-of-the-road among developed countries; several countries have a more limited understanding of potential climate impacts and no/few adaptation options under discussion while a similar number of countries have already taken policy initiatives to alleviate the impacts of current climate variability and/or have started integrating climate risks in national/sectoral planning. This study finally reviews key national and provincial initiatives currently underway in Canada to move from assessment to action on adaptation to climate change.

2005-04-05