Net-zero plans are great, but today’s climate change disasters need to be addressed

It is often said that today’s economy is about resilience: developing robust and crisis-resistant supply chains, reducing our reliance on other states for critical materials, and ensuring that we always have a backup plan at hand so that we switch when a fault occurs.

But economic resilience is as much about dealing with extreme weather as it is about dealing with unpredictable geopolitics.

Wildfires threaten our communities summer after summer, increasing in intensity and suffocating the land in smoke.

Summers are hotter. Winters are weak. Floods are more common. The world is, as it should be, stunned as wildfires in northern Quebec, Nova Scotia and northeastern British Columbia break records, turning millions of acres of trees into charred stumps — even as Alberta faces flooding.

And even though we as a country and as a business know all of these things, our backup plans are limping along.

Big money, of course, supports a multi-year plan to shift the economy to a low-carbon stance. It is the focus of government policy, of billions in federal budgets, and of much planning and investment within companies that have made net-zero commitments.

And so it should be. Canada is ambitious in its goals. Both business and government are orchestrating a large-scale transformation of the economy around us.

But our ability to cope with the already present dangers of climate change is shaky at best and could use some attention of our own.

Policies and funding for adaptation to warmer temperatures have always been the poor cousin when it comes to climate politics.

The federal government finally came up with a plan for a national adaptation strategy at the end of last year, after thorough consultation with provinces, indigenous organizations and the business community. The spring budget allocated $1.6 billion to the plan over five years — building on previous funding — and concrete details are expected to roll out this week.

That compares to about $50 billion the US has earmarked for climate adaptation and resilience through its budget and Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

And while the latest federal allocation isn’t the only thing governments are doing on climate adaptation, it’s a sliver compared to what Ottawa says is $200 billion in long-term plans to reduce emissions and protect the environment — plans that are evolving and clear a top priority for the government.

In other words, the amounts allocated to ensure severe weather events don’t tear our economy apart are small, reflecting policymakers’ priorities.

And now we learn that they are not issued as advertised. As the star’s Alex Ballingall reported last week in an analysis of budgeted resources for climate initiativesaccording to the public accounts, government spending was billions behind schedule or remained on the sidelines.

Much of that slow funding revolves around climate adaptation. Until recently, funding for disaster relief was just a trickle. Investments in resilient infrastructure were only half spent. Money to ensure that the flow of goods and people can withstand the effects of climate change is lagging far behind.

Meanwhile, the companies and communities that rely on that kind of infrastructure to do business are literally under attack or under water. Wildfires in June forced the temporary closure of dozens of mining operations across Canada, and now flooding is forcing road closures in some parts of the country.

This is not just bad luck. There’s a reason California’s largest homeowners insurance company won’t sell coverage in that state anymore, and other insurers are scrambling to cover the cost. The costs, the New York Times reports, are simply too high to handle.

That hasn’t happened in Canada, and here the federal government is working with the insurance industry to make sure it doesn’t happen, according to a CBC report.

But there’s no question that that kind of collaboration between the private and public sectors needs to be ramped up dramatically to meet the immediate challenge of more turbulent weather conditions.

A recent study from the Canadian Climate Institute, The Co-operators Group Ltd. and Climate Resilience Consulting figures the Canadian economy will require $78 billion in investment by 2050 to cope with the impact of extreme weather events. However, the price tag drops by half if the work is done sooner rather than later.

Counting numbers by Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office found similar dynamics last year. Climate-related pressures on infrastructure will cost the province about $2.2 billion a year in transportation infrastructure alone, if left untouched. But with investments to upgrade the network, climate-related costs would be lower.

More importantly, the transportation of goods and people would be much more reliable, which is exactly the kind of predictability companies need if they want to be resilient.

A more robust transportation network that reliably connects Canada to the US is already a prerequisite in the new economy of friendly support and regional trade alliances – a network that requires federal and provincial governments to collaborate, plan and invest together.

However, this early summer of fires and floods confirms that resilience is not just about strengthening trade corridors and supply chains. It is also about making those networks climate-proof.

Heather Scoffield is senior vice president, strategy, at the Business Council of Canada. She previously served as bureau chief in Ottawa and an economics columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @hscoffield

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