Climate change impacts is more attention to adaptation

The Maritimes have taken a beating from storms in recent months. Three days ago, had wind speeds up to 140 km / hr and torrential rains that have hit the 79,000 residents of Nova Scotia Power, without the left and caused flooding in New Brunswick.

Dena Dawson carries her 10-month-old son Drayden as daughters Dominique, 15, and Danielle, 13, walk through the debris of their damaged family business, the H.C. Lindsay Funeral Home and Crematorium, in Kentville on Tuesday. A powerful overnight storm with high winds and rain damaged buildings, fel

In August, Meat Cove was a great flash flood damaged roads and bridges, difficult, and cut off communities for days. Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office estimated that the cost of each two-day event, more than $ 7,000,000, including evacuation, repair damage to public infrastructure and private homes are.

Two weeks later, in early September, Hurricane Earl has brought strong winds and heavy rains along the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Although the damage caused by Hurricane Earl was lower than expected, according to media reports, one person died because of the storm and power outages were reported in many environments.

Two months later, in early November, another victim has been reported due to bad weather, Yarmouth County and others have declared a state of local emergency has been blocked roads, power outages were reported, and authorities in charged ' eye dams. In six days, doubling the average seasonal rainfall for the November in some areas: from Kejimkujik National Park and Yarmouth in the rain, as 250 mm fell, causing and flooding and damage to roads and buildings.

And the little more than a week of unusually mild temperatures, heavy rains and winds exceeding 90 km / hr hit the south coast of erosion and flooding, and EMO, a new warning to residents to stay away from the issue of coastal areas. Meanwhile, in northern New Brunswick and parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence has been heavy rains, strong winds and storm surges has suggested that damage to coastal areas.

The question many people ask is whether these recent events, like last year, unique weather anomalies, or a look at what we might face in coming years due to long-term of the climate change impacts. Canadians want to know more about the significance of the climate change impacts, their communities and their governments can respond to these affects.

Last week, my office has submitted a report to Parliament if the federal government is preparing for the long term to address climate change into account. The report ended that there is still no federal policy on adaptation to climate change, and a strategy and action plan in place.

This is alarming, because the federal government has made with its own scientific assessment that the impact of climate change is inevitable and is already in place in some regions.

For example, increases in average temperature in northern Canada are already twice as much felt in southern Canada. With the melting of permafrost, which cycles roads in the forests of the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia devastated and threatens to spread in the boreal forests of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, from climate change a threat long after the daily reality for many communities moved .

In the Maritimes, scientific research, confirmed by the federal government in 2008, total projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change United Nations: the costs will be increasingly vulnerable to sea level rise and erosion, and increase the number and intensity of extreme weather events like hurricanes and tropical storms.

In addition, the Fisheries and Oceans Canada has identified risks to fish from climate change, while Health Canada has identified potential health problems due to the possible increase in episodes of extreme heat. In recent years, Health Canada has a successful pilot project heat alarm in Fredericton and in other communities across Canada; the number of hot days will increase.

In our report to Parliament, we examined a federal program that helps in partnership with countries and communities, Canadians prepare for the effects of climate change because of climate models and scenarios on the possible impact on regional or local level as the low altitude demonstrate the vulnerability of buildings and other infrastructure, which amounts to interference from sea level rise and coastal erosion can.

The challenge of adaptation to climate change will take years. If the types of events we've seen here in Nova Scotia in recent months, all information, which may be the "new normal" of the future, will require attention in the long term.

Scott Vaughan is the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development. He is in a public meeting of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network (NSEN) this evening at 07.00 clocks to talk and discuss three main topics: oil pollution, freshwater resources and prepare for the climate change impacts. The event will take place at Veith House, 3115 Veith Street Halifax, NS