Innovation Strategy to Address the Climate Change Grand Challenges – Adaptation and Resilience

Introduction

In undertaking a National Conversation on Canada’s Innovation Strategy, it is very important to address the risks that will impact key industrial sectors, governments and communities over the next decade and include how innovation can  reduce the risks’ impacts.  The risks will also impact other countries and industrial sectors, and the Canadian innovation process should examine relative competitive benefits.  The assessment of the possible risks and development of risk reduction strategies should be integrated across the challenges and have active participation from broad scientific sectors.  

Global Risk Assessments

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Reports rank critical global risks facing economies and societies.  The 2024 Report^[1]  has ranked the highest risk for the short term (next 2 years) to be Misinformation and disinformation^[2] and the second highest short-term risk to be Extreme weather events^[3].  For the longer term (10+ years), extreme weather events are  ranked the highest risk and the risk of Misinformation and disinformation is lowered to be the 5th highest risk.   The top 4 risks are all environment-climate related risks with: 2. Critical change to Earth systems; 3. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; and 4. Natural resources shortages^[4] (see Table).

Extreme weather events as highest risk is consistent with the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 2021-23.  As the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers^[5] states: “Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.” The North American Chapter of the Working Group II^[6] report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, states that “accelerating climate change hazards pose significant risks to the wellbeing of North American populations and the natural, managed and human systems on which they depend” and that “addressing these risks have been made more urgent by delays due to misinformation about climate science that has sowed uncertainty, and impeded recognition of risk.”  Misinformation is directly affecting actions needed to address climate change impacts.

Climate-change hazards are increasing and pose significant risks to the health and well-being of North American populations, with diseases as well as wide-ranging negative mental health outcomes and also impacting key industrial sectors like agriculture and food.  The economic activities across North America, such as supply-chain infrastructure and trade, food production and nutritional security and other sectors, already being affected, will be much more affected in the coming decades.  Market and non-market economic damages are projected to increase to the end of the century from climate impacts.  It is very important that the near- and long-term adaptation planning, implementation, and coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, be designed to support equitable and effective solutions.

International Agreements Addressing Global Challenges – Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction

In 2015, Canada and most countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement with its key objectives in Article 2: (a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change; (b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; and (c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

With respect to Article 2(a), the year 2023 was the hottest year^[7] on record since 1850 with global average temperature rising to 1.48 oC above pre-industrial levels.   It should be noted that these are global average temperatures and Canada is warming about twice as fast as the global average and the Canadian Arctic warming 3-4 times faster.

In 2015, Canada and most countries also endorsed the Sendai Framework for Action on Disaster Risk Reduction which provides four priority areas for Disaster Risk Reduction: 1. Understanding disaster risk; 2. Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; 3. Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and 4. Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction. These and the Paris Articles 2 (b) and (c) are highly linked and strong policy, science and actions addressing both should be fully integrated.  

Addressing the Challenges for an Innovative Strategy

Integrated actions across the connected challenges and between different levels of governance, industrial sector and communities, including homeowners, are essential to address these risks.  The innovation strategy should be designed to adapt to the changing climate, reduce risks and emissions and beyond.   To address the climate crisis, a more ambitious, strategic and collaborative approach to adaptation is required. The synthesis report Building climate resilient communities (2021) prepared by a cross-disciplinary team of 22 scientists, available at ICLR^[8] and Western University^[9], provides a Canadian assessment and concludes that to address the climate crisis, a more ambitious, strategic and collaborative approach to adaptation is required.  The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) was formally established in 1999 and focuses on multi-disciplinary disaster prevention research and communication.  It has been designated by the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk program (IRDR)^[10] as an International Centre of Excellence for Disaster Resilient Homes, Buildings and Public Infrastructure. The ICLR is supported by Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry and affiliated with Western University. Institute staff and research associates are international leaders in wind and seismic engineering, atmospheric science, risk perception, hydrology, economics, geography, health sciences, public policy and other disciplines. The ILCR collaborates with professional engineers, for example, with the Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) Protocol^[11] to assist engineers in factoring climate change impacts into plans for design, operation and maintenance of infrastructure.  The ICLR collaborates with local governments to take action to reduce Canadian’s risks from extreme weather and the ICLR’s Cities adapt: Celebrating local leadership^[12] provides information on how local governments are adapting to climate change and building more resilient communities with best practices.  The ICLR through media and its website and other information actively address misinformation.