Climate Change

Climate Change Research

Climate Change Research on local government planning for climate change adaptation, mitigation and resiliency



The majority of the world's scientists, the International Panel on Climate Change, have stated since 1995 that changes are now no longer natural, and are now influenced by human impacts. In spite of this continuing worldwide scientific consensus, there is a minority who doubt this science, some of whom are very influential. It is only prudent, however, regardless of this political controversy, to reduce our reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels, moving from an extractive to a restorative, to a regenerative economy.



Two critical climate change research projects were conducted. One, funded by Canada's granting council, Planning for Adaptation and Resiliency, led by Dr. Kevin Hanna, was a comparative research project exploring local government planning for climate change adaptation and resiliency in Canada. The second, Meeting the Climate Change Challenge (MC3), led by Professor Ann Dale, focused specifically on the response of British Columbia municipalities to the first major wave of provincial policy response to climate change adaptation and mitigation. The second phase of this project, MC3 2.0, now underway, is tracking changes in the development paths of the 11 original case study communities. 



In collaboration, one of the research outcomes was two scans, a map of international best practices of climate change adaptation and their relevance for Canadian learning and a scan of all the local government responses to climate change adaptation in British Columbia



For a review of existing international case studies please visit the GRaBS - Adaptation for Urban Areas case study database showcasing climate change adaptation approaches.