The Alberta Resilient Communities Project. October, 2013

Transcription

1 The Alberta Resilient Communities Project October, 2013

2 Introduction As the 2013 flooding of Southern Alberta made abundantly clear, the losses triggered by extreme weather will increasingly make communities vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This proposal seeks funding to support vulnerable communities in Alberta become more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The Alberta Resilient Communities Fund will help rural communities in Alberta factor climate change into infrastructure and development investments and decisions, ultimately saving money in the long run and protecting lives, buildings and infrastructure from catastrophic losses. It is intended to be supple and targeted, eliminating the lengthy and unnecessary planning processes that are beyond the capacity of most rural communities. Rationale the impacts of climate change are serious and will cost Albertan s money, affect their quality of life, and impact local and regional economies; rural municipalities do not have the capacity, and are not being supported, to integrate climate change into their policy and operational decisions; and the insurance industry has a vested interest in supporting climate resiliency in Alberta municipalities to ensure appropriate land use planning, zoning, property protection and emergency response measures are in place to avoid and mitigate costly insurance payouts. Background C3 (formerly known as Climate Change Central) is one of Canada s leading climate change agencies. Over the past 12 years, the Alberta-based non-profit has developed innovative programs and policies in the offsets market, energy efficiency and transportation. C3 partners with government, municipalities and corporations to design and administer tailored initiatives to help people use energy more wisely and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental burdens. C3 is partnering with its charitable organization, All One Sky Foundation (AOS), on the Resilient Communities Project. AOS was established in 2009 to focus on the emerging issues and gaps that C3 identified in its delivery of large-scale energy efficiency and other mitigation programs. All One Sky is working on three program areas: resilience to climate change, energy poverty, and innovation. Climate resiliency is the ability of our social, economic and ecological systems to withstand and recover from climate-induced changes and events. From a community perspective, it means that impacts are not felt as deeply, recovery is rapid and cost effective, and the post-impact community is stronger 1. 1 Insurance Council of Australia (2008) Proposal and Business Case for Alberta Resilient Communities Fund Page 2

3 Albertans are already experiencing significant impacts from the current climate, including floods, droughts and forest fires, and future projections suggest that these impacts are likely to worsen as our climate changes. There is however, little support to help rural communities understand, cope with, and be more resilient to the new threats and opportunities posed by climate change. This document proposes a concept for engaging Alberta s rural municipalities in preparing for the potential impacts of climate change by developing and implementing climate-resilient actions. Alberta s climate has changed substantially over the last 100 years. Mean annual temperatures have increased from between 1.3 to 2.1 o C across the province 2. Precipitation amounts have increased overall with the most significant increases in the northern and northwestern Alberta regions. Slight decreases in precipitation have been noticed in the winter months (November to February) in some parts of the province. Canada-wide, there have also been changes in the frequency of extreme temperature and precipitation events, including fewer cold days, more extreme warm days, and more days with extreme precipitation 3. Alberta s climate is expected to change more rapidly in the coming decades than in any other time. By the 2050 s the annual mean temperature is projected to increase by between 3 o C and 5 o C 4. Precipitation changes vary across regions in the province. Overall Alberta can expect a decrease in precipitation of about 5 per cent in the south, and increases of between 5 per cent and 10 per cent in the north and west. New trends in extreme precipitation events are of particular concern for the insurance sector. A recent CERES report outlines a perfect storm confronting insurers: rising payouts, low investment returns and a constrained economy. 5 Extreme weather, tied to climate change, is already causing more businesses and properties to be uninsurable in the private insurance markets, leaving the higher risks and costs to governments, taxpayers and individuals. 6 Climatic changes will impact our economy, lifestyle and environment, and there is an increasingly urgent need to be adaptive and respond to these changes. Existing climate-related environmental stresses are likely to increase, including: increasing drought conditions, particularly in southern Alberta; increased frequency of forest fires; infrastructure impacts related to extreme events. These changes will affect Alberta communities in different ways. The most significant impacts relate to: impacts of flooding and extreme rainfall events, such as damage to infrastructure, including roads, bridges, dikes, utilities, buildings (personal property), stormwater management systems, water supply lines and wastewater systems; 2 Shen, et al. (2005) 3 Warren and Egginton (2008) 4 Barrow and Yu (2005) 5 McHale and Leurig (2012) 6 Ibid. Proposal and Business Case for Alberta Resilient Communities Fund Page 3

4 impacts of drought on water supply and utilization 7. The potential impacts of climate change suggest that Alberta communities should begin to learn about and prepare for the impacts of a changing climate. The inherent uncertainty surrounding climate change suggests that preparation should follow a risk-based approach which addresses the near-term impacts which are most likely and most severe. Planning in the face of uncertainty requires adjustments in our approach to planning, including changes to law, policy and practice. This requires commitment and support from all levels of government and industry, in an effort to protect Alberta s unique assets, economy and quality of life. The Business Adaptation Imperative Climate change is increasingly recognized as a man-made problem with significant long-term economic, social and environmental effects. It is also understood that our best efforts to mitigate climate change will not be effective in stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs to safe levels; some impacts associated with climate change are unavoidable 8. It is therefore imperative that all of society take steps to enhance their resilience to current impacts and projected future climate changes. From a business perspective, climate change is regarded as...the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. 9 A report by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change outlines the potential risks posed to private sector businesses as stemming from three main sources: 1. risks to core operations, including damage to physical structures and assets from extreme weather events; 2. risks to the value chain and business interruption through degradation of production inputs; and 3. impacts to supply networks such as electricity, water utilities, and transport infrastructure 10. Although costing the impacts of climate change is difficult, several national and international studies have attempted to do so. The Stern Report, the definitive report on the costs of climate change globally, suggested that a business as usual trajectory would cost society in the order of $2.5 trillion, in comparison with a global effort to stabilize CO 2 emissions at 550 parts per million. In Canada, studies have explored the economic impacts of climate change on insurance claims and losses related to heavy rainfall events and suggest these will increase 11. The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) estimated that the costs of climate change for Canada could be about $5 billion per year in 2020, and between $21 billion and $43 billion per year by the 2050s 12. Costs were associated with impacts to timber 7 Sauchyn and Kulshreshtha (2008) 8 Klein and Huq (2007) 9 Stern (2006) 10 Pew Centre on Global Climate Change (2008) 11 Cheng, Li, Li, and Auld (2012) 12 NRTEE (2011) Proposal and Business Case for Alberta Resilient Communities Fund Page 4

5 supply, coastal areas and human health all of which will be affected negatively by climate change. Alberta is at the forefront of extreme weather and natural disasters which have increased in frequency of the last century 13. According to Canada s disaster database, five of the top six most costly disasters in Canadian history affected Alberta 14 : 2) June 2010 flooding in Southern Alberta cost $956 million; 3) September 1991 storms in Calgary Alberta cost $884 million; 4) May 2011 wildfires in the Slave Lake area cost $700 million; 5) January 1990 drought in the prairie provinces cost $581 million; and 6) January 1992 drought in the prairie provinces cost $580 million 15. Extreme weather events and natural disasters already have significant costs for Alberta, and future projections suggest that these events are likely to increase in frequency, intensity and distribution in the future 16. The benefits of taking action now to reduce the consequences of droughts, wildfires, extreme rain events and flooding are likely to outweigh the costs of doing nothing, even without accounting for future climate change. Alberta Resilient Communities Project The ARCP concept is based on a similar climate adaptation initiative, the Communities Adapting to Climate Change Initiative (CACCI) through Columbia Basin Trust, in the Kootenay region of BC 17. The CACCI is a highly successful, community-based planning initiative recognized by the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change as a global best practice 18. The ARCP builds on this successful model and applies an Alberta-specific lens to municipal climate resiliency planning and implementation. The key features of the ARCF concept are: a structure which includes a coordinator, housed within All One Sky Foundation, to deliver the program; a strategic advisory committee to provide direction; and project partners to provide specific technical expertise to the coordinator and partnering communities; a focus on delivering climate resilient scoping workshops, and providing direct support to implement climate resilient measures in rural municipalities in Alberta; and a goal of engaging fifteen rural municipalities over a three-year pilot period. The initiative would be directed through a Strategic Advisory Committee (SAC), which would function like a Board of Directors, providing strategic direction, governance and approval of 13 Warren and Egginton (2008) 14 The Canadian Disaster Database: 15 The number one natural disaster was the January 1998 winter storm in Ontario/New Brunswick which cost $4.6 billion. 16 Sauchyn and Kulshreshtha (2008) 17 CBT (2012) 18 UNFCCC (2011) Proposal and Business Case for Alberta Resilient Communities Fund Page 5

6 climate resiliency projects. The ARCP would be supported by a group of partners consisting of climate and environmental scientists, climate adaptation planners, researchers, social scientists and other prominent organizations and individuals in the climate adaptation field. Partners will provide support to specific adaptation planning projects; serving as a pool of technical experts who will be engaged as needed and as requested by the Coordinator or by municipalities. For example, if a municipality is concerned about future water supply shortages, the Coordinator may engage a hydrologist partner to support the community in conducting research, identifying impacts and/or developing strategies to address future water shortages. Part of the Coordinator s role is to match the expertise of partners with community needs. ARCP Concept Approach In general, the approach to working with municipalities focuses on delivering climate resilient scoping workshops, and then providing direct support to implement climate resilient actions for those communities interested in pursuing adaptation. The goal is to deliver workshops in five communities per year over a three-year initial piloting of the initiative. The workshop process follows a standard risk management approach, with a partial-vulnerability assessment included. The partial-vulnerability approach incorporates current climate vulnerability into the risk management approach. The workshop design is based on experience conducting successful workshops with rural municipalities in the Columbia Basin of BC. The overall outcome of the workshop is identification of the most significant climate risks facing the community, and identified climate resilient actions to address those risks. Post workshop, the Project Coordinator will work with individual municipalities to identify and implement projects that support climate resiliency in the community. Projects envisioned could include: structural projects involving the design, development and/or refurbishment of infrastructure related to water supply, stormwater management, waste water disposal, water monitoring, flood protection, etc.; research, planning or assessment projects to identify social, economic or biophysical impacts and adaptive responses; programs to increase community resilience, including those focused on water conservation, fire-proofing and home construction and maintenance; and other projects as identified by municipalities. To obtain funds for a project, municipalities will be required to develop a proposal outlining the nature of the project, benefits of the project, and the funding and support required. The Coordinator will work with individual municipalities to identify projects and draft proposals. Subject to ARCP funds, it is anticipated that each community would have access to: a maximum of $20,000 to provide direct monetary support to implement a climate resiliency project; a maximum of $10,000 in technical support to be used to link the municipality with a project partner to provide specific technical expertise (e.g. planning, hydrology, climate science, engineering, etc.) depending on the nature of the project. Partners will be engaged on a contractual basis to support municipal projects. Proposal and Business Case for Alberta Resilient Communities Fund Page 6

7 Municipal proposals will be reviewed and approved by the SAC. ARCF Projected Budget A total budget of $513,600 is projected to operate the climate resiliency initiative over a three year trial period; engaging five communities per year 19. The goal is to obtain all funds necessary to operate the ARCP in year 1, with efforts to top-up the fund occurring on an on-going basis throughout the three-year piloting period. C3 and AOS Capabilities C3 and All One Sky Foundation are well-suited to take a lead role in municipal climate adaptation planning in Alberta. These organizations have the experience and knowledge to develop and implement the ARCP concept. Existing capabilities include: partnerships with private sector organizations across the province who will serve as potential funders of the ARCP; partnerships with municipalities through development and implementation of programs designed to use energy more wisely and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; development and management of provincial environmental programs focused on energy efficiency, renewable energy, transportation, and offsets; direct experience in rationalizing the business case for climate change adaptation for high-level policy makers in Alberta and elsewhere; experience in developing Alberta s departmental climate change strategy; and experience delivering a similar and highly successful climate resiliency program in the Columbia Basin region of British Columbia. 19 Detailed budget and references available upon request. Proposal and Business Case for Alberta Resilient Communities Fund Page 7