EDITORIAL: A $6.6 billion climate boondoggle

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One of the least controversial and most effective ways to address climate change is to adapt to it. 

The other strategy — mitigation — is a long-term program that will have no discernible effect on the frequency of severe weather for decades, and is reliant on global action rather than initiatives by Canada alone.

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By contrast, adaptation, which Canada can do on its own, can have immediate health, safety and economic benefits for Canadians.

The purpose of adaptation is to limit the damage caused by wildfires, floods and droughts by making public and private infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather and enacting sensible planning and building code policies to provide communities with maximum protection. 

Despite the fact the environment ministry claims that investing in adaptation can save up to $15 for every $1 spent, a report by federal environment commissioner Jerry V. DeMarco released Tuesday suggests the more than $6.6 billion the Liberals have spent on developing a national adaptation strategy has become a boondoggle.

DeMarco found the federal government has been slow to implement its national adaptation strategy and that when it was finally announced in 2023, it lacked essential elements to make it effective, while progress since then has been slow. 

DeMarco said the missing elements included “a prioritization of Canada’s climate change risks, an economic analysis to assign appropriate resources to different federal adaptation actions, a comprehensive federal action plan, and an effective framework for measuring and monitoring results.”

He found the key component of the plan — actions to be taken by the federal government to adapt to climate change —  “was neither systematic nor comprehensive”  and that the 73 actions it outlined,  “were a mix of new and existing federal programming” lacking any assessment of the outcomes for vulnerable communities.

DeMarco said his audit of seven important actions within the plan found their implementation was limited and that two other important strategies — joint action plans by the federal, provincial and territorial governments and actions to be taken in co-operation with Canada’s Indigenous communities, had not been established as of late 2024. 

Given that the Liberals say climate change is an existential threat, their lack of progress on helping Canadians to adapt to it raises serious questions about their credibility on the issue.