Canadians encouraged not to forget about climate change amid pandemic
Published December 4, 2020 at 5:10 pm
Given the fact the pandemic is now approaching nine months, it makes sense that it’s at the forefront of everyone’s minds.
However, COVID-19 isn’t the only threat to Canadians—the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC) warns that global warming remains a serious threat, particularly for the great white north.
According to research from the CICC, weather-related disasters such as floods, storms, and wildfires are becoming more frequent, more extreme and more expensive to deal with—already adding up to billions of dollars every year.
Additionally, since 2010, the cost of weather-related disasters and catastrophic events has amounted to approximately five to six per cent of Canada’s annual GDP growth, an increase from the previous number of one per cent in previous decades.
Further, the institution is significantly increasing public funding for adaptation measures that improve resilience, and co-ordinating climate change adaptation efforts across provincial, territorial, Indigenous and municipal governments.
Moreover, a recent report indicates catastrophic losses from weather-related disasters could reach unsustainable levels—over the last decade, insured losses due to such events exceeded $18 billion.
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“One lesson Canada must learn from the global pandemic is that we need to get much better at foreseeing and acting on risk. As climate change accelerates, no individual, province or sector will be immune,” Kathy Bardswick, president of the CICC, said in a news release.
“Now more than ever, we cannot afford to ignore massive future costs—especially those that we have the power to manage. We can limit our risk exposure and make better decisions by investing in resilience and mandating climate risk disclosure,” she continued.
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