Natural Resources Canada has released a new report on the probable impacts of climate change in Canada. Sorted regionally, the report also includes a chapter on Canada’s position in an international context. Overall, the report is pretty comprehensive: covering everything from probable flow changes in Canadian rivers to the possibility that climate change will fuel international armed conflicts.
While the report covers a lot of bases, the final conclusions about what ought to be done seem somewhat vague. Perhaps that is reflective of the degree to which adaptation efforts need to be tuned locally and cannot easily be effectively developed at a national level.
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March 13th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Feds quietly release climate report despite spending $50,000 on PR
1 day ago
OTTAWA — The federal government paid $50,000 to a top public relations firm to choreograph the release of a major study on climate change - only to quietly post it online after it was leaked.
Natural Resources Canada hired Hill and Knowlton last year to craft the unveiling of a study that took years of research and input from more than 140 experts.
But the department abruptly posted the report on its website late Friday after the CBC revealed its contents the day before.
Department officials had anticipated a national launch, followed by regional events across the country, said a source speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“The plan was to launch it with a bit of fanfare.”
March 17th, 2008 at 10:58 am
# A few of the report’s findingsHumans run the real risk of triggering processes in this century that will inevitably lead to “potentially cataclysmic surprises” in the next;
# Canadians will experience greater economic and social impacts at the local and regional levels than national or global scale analyses predict;
# Water quality and quantity will decline on a seasonal basis in every region of Canada. Prairie drought will become the norm.
# Drought is responsible for 6 of the 10 most costly events in Canadian history. The national 2001-2002 drought cost about $5.8 billion and more than 41,000 jobs;
# Excluding drought, short-term costs from nine extreme weather events between 1991 and 2005 totalled over $10 billion;
# Climate-related impacts will create significant challenges for maintaining biodiversity in Canada’s protected areas;
# We have the knowledge necessary to start undertaking adaptation activities in most situations now.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
[...] Because of a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, a judge in Oakland California ordered the release of the Climate Change Science Programs (CCSP) assessment of climate change impacts in the United States. In total, the public release of the report was delayed for three years. The report - Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States - is now available online. It is not unlike the impacts report previously released by Natural Resources Canada. [...]
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
[...] Canada has followed up the climate change impact assessment carried out by Natural Resources Canada with a report of their own: Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of [...]