Report: Canada must climate-proof its infrastructure investments
A new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), prepared with support from Infrastructure Canada, makes one thing clear: how we create and maintain our built environment must change.
“These last few weeks have shown us first-hand how climate change can damage the infrastructure in Canada, risking lives and costing billions in repairs,” says Anne Hammill, Senior Director of IISD’s Resilience Program. “We need our municipalities and governments to better incorporate climate change risks into the design, operation, and rehabilitation of our built infrastructure, while also looking more seriously at the benefits of using nature-based solutions.”
Advancing the Climate Resilience of Canadian Infrastructure: A review of literature to inform the way forward profiles the ways in which action is already being taken nationally and internationally through policies, tools, and financing to enable more resilient infrastructure. But greater effort and investments are needed to keep up with the accelerating pace of climate change.
The report suggests a need for structure changes to the components of critical infrastructure to promote climate resiliency. This can be done through, for example adopting green roofs on buildings, using increased surface and groundwater storage and retention for drought management, increasing drainage capacity, culvert debris clearing, and the use of permeable pavement in urban areas to better manage storm water, and fortifying against flooding by elevating electrical substations and electrical components, burying distribution lines and using microgrids for protection and redundancy against summer and winter storms, and increasing the cooling capacity of data centres to cope with higher temperatures.
The authors also look at the role of natural infrastructure, such as wetlands and living shorelines, in providing a cost-effective way to increase resilience while providing other benefits such as carbon sequestration, species habitat, and recreational spaces.
One third of core public infrastructure is in poor condition, with the national infrastructure deficit estimated to be between $150 billion and $1 trillion. The report also suggests that the gap in First Nations is estimated at between $25 billion and $30 billion.
Such finds are telling, says the report. “Because infrastructure assets have long lifespans, it is important that decisions made while closing this gap look to the future, recognizing that climate-resilient infrastructure builds community resilience over the long term. To achieve this objective, greater effort is needed in areas such as increased use of climate risk assessments and climate projections for infrastructure design, and the development and use of updated building codes and natural infrastructure solutions.”
“As the devastation caused by the wildfire that destroyed the town of Lytton showed, climate change is already impacting communities across Canada,” said federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna. “We need to adapt to a changing climate that is resulting in more frequent flooding, forest fires, droughts, erosion, and thawing permafrost in the North. The federal government is working with Canadians to adapt to a changing climate and to build more resilient communities through investments in climate resilient infrastructure and by using the best available data and best practices in infrastructure adaptation, mitigation, and planning.”
Finally, the report says the benefits of acting now are significant.
The Council of Canadian Academies, in addition to ranking damage to physical infrastructure as Canada’s most consequential climate risk, highlighted that infrastructure is the top sector for climate resilience potential in Canada, as measured by the proportion of damages that can be avoided through adaptation policy and programs.
Closing the infrastructure gap, it says, can create a multiplier effect of 1.7 for the economy.
Featured image: Cover image from the IISD report. (International Institute for Sustainable Development)