What does building climate resilience look like? Anabela Bonada is managing director of climate science at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, based at the University of Waterloo. She says Canada shouldn't just respond to disasters, it should also prepare for them to.

Excellent question. So it's very different from mitigation. We hear a lot about mitigation in the media for maybe the last 30 years. It's been more mainstream for us as Canadians and in the world. When we talk about adaptation and climate change, we're looking at preparing our homes, our communities, changing our behaviour to adapt to the climbing, the changing climate.

So with changing climate, we're seeing more wildfire, more flooding occur, extreme heat. So we have these like long seasons of extreme heat in Canada now that we didn't have before. So we are looking for ways to really adapt our lives so that we can live in these changing conditions. And that's really what adaptation is.

When did climate adaptation enter the Canadian lexicon? When did we start thinking about this? That's really good because really we've known about adaptation for many years. So again, it's kind of grew up with mitigation, but nobody paid much attention to it because it felt like we were giving up on climate if we talked about adaptation.

But over the last ten years, there's been a real shift in Canada. So the impacts from climate have only gone up. We've seen it in financially, we've seen it in loss of lives. So adaptation has really entered the conversation. And I would say it's become mainstream in the last five years really. But part of the conversation for the last ten.

I want to pick up on a point you just made. If we are focusing on the adaptation part, are we sort of giving up on the mitigation part? No, never. And we would never ask for that to happen. Both need to happen together. And that's what we're hearing more from people across Canada that do this kind of work. We need to combine the two and not see them as separate.

If we only mitigate and we don't prepare our communities for the impacts, we're going to continue to feel them and have losses that we just don't want to have. The impacts will continue to be felt from climate change, even if we were to completely reduce our emissions today, just from how long it will take for for the climate to go back to normal.

When did adaptation become an official strategy here in Canada? 2023. So I do have a. Fairly recent. Super recent. Yeah, we're still kind of learning our way through it. The federal government released their National Adaptation Strategy in 2023, with 26 targets for Canadians to learn about extreme weather and to learn what to do as communities and at the household level to reduce their risk. So we're still implementing those strategies across the country. There's a lot of work being done on it, but it's super new for us.

I want to get into some real world examples. You are an expert in wildfires, so I think let's start with that. If we were to look at adaptation, what does it look like in the terms of wildfires? There are different levels of adaptation for wildfires. So we can start at the home level. Let's do it. Yeah. There's so much that people can do. And I kind of love that about wildfire, about adaptation. Everyone can do it. So if you have some time this weekend, we're almost in the off season wildfire seasons ending. End of October. Yeah, exactly. This is a perfect time right before winter to go and look at your yard, clean up your yard. If there's any dry debris, remove it. Make sure there's nothing under your deck or around your home. The 1.5 perimeter around the home is really important to keep as clear as possible.

If you have mulching, consider changing that to soil to changing it to rocks, and like that will really prevent your home from burning or being in danger. Most homes burn from embers, so even if a wildfire is not occurring close to your community, the embers can land in those spaces and ignite the home. So just think about that, clearing some of the vegetation and reducing some of the build-up farther away from the home. So even if you have some big beautiful trees, just try to maintain them as healthy as possible. Remove branches up to two metres and that way the fire has nowhere to go. You're just cutting those areas so the fire can't travel. So lots for homeowners to do. And I really encourage them to to look into that and do as much as possible.

All right. So let's go from homeowners. Let's go bigger. What else can we do when it comes to forest fires. Whether it's businesses or municipalities. Yeah. And there's so much that needs to be done. And everybody needs to participate to reduce risk. So businesses, municipalities they need to think about those bigger projects. So where is our infrastructure. Is it close to forested areas. Then we need to create firebreaks around those areas.

We also need to make sure we have enough firefighting water for example. So some of the fires that occurred in 2023, there just wasn't enough fire, sorry, enough water to fight those fires off. So making sure that's always up to par, that's considered adaptation and preparedness. Making sure that people are aware of their risk and providing educational resources. That's considered preparedness as well. That doesn't cost municipalities or businesses anything to do.

And then some of the bigger things are how we design our communities. So if we're thinking of expanding communities and housing in Canada, which is a big conversation right now, where are we going to build those homes? And if they're close to that wildland urban interface where wildfires happen, let's clear some of the vegetation. Let's make sure that the homes are wildfire resilient before we build them.

I do have a question. When you talk about the homeowners and businesses, what we learned during Covid is that we a lot of people used Nature Forests as sort of a third space. I myself love planting. I've got a beautiful garden that I like to tend to. It might be hard for a lot of people who are listening to be like, oh, you know, no mulch, none of that stuff near my house. How do you try to convince people that perhaps it's not the easiest because they might have a hard time with that as well?

It's such a good point. A lot of people hear what we say and they say, oh, so I have to remove my vegetation or cut down my trees. We would never say that because that wouldn't even be good for your home, for the environment. We have pollinator gardens. There's so much that we care about outside of just the wildfire risk.

So first, are you at risk of wildfire? And if you are, and you should know from what we've seen in the past five years, happen in Canada, or just speak to your municipality, then you should start to implement some of these actions. Now, with that being said, there are incredibly beautiful gardens that are fire resistant, fire resilient. Fire Smart BC has an incredible list of plants that are fire resistant. The other day in an email, I got that hostas. They're pretty common, like. Big flower. Yeah, people love them. They're fire resistant. I didn't know this. Okay. I'm not a big gardener. Okay, so for gardeners, there are tons of beautiful plants that they can plant close to the home and just maintain them.

Keep them moisturised. You want to make sure that they're wet. If your plants dry out, you're creating a hazard for your home. So maintaining a good garden is actually perfect for for fire resilience.

You talked about water keeping your plants wet. I want to talk about flooding. Now from a homeowner's perspective, what can we do when it when we talk about adapting to flooding? Yeah, there's again tons that homeowners can do that residents can do. So look around your home. What what do you have if you have a basement? Think about your valuables, for example. That's the first easy thing that you can do. Put them higher up. So even if you have to have them in the basement, think of some shelving units or having containers that are a bit water resistant for your valuables. So in case that your basement floods, you can protect it. So you're looking at like about 30 centimetres to keep things raised.

You can have a sump pump which not every home can have, but if you can, that's excellent for taking the water out. But outside their home there's a lot that can be done. So like take a walk around your neighbourhood and you'll see that with the leaves that are falling now in the fall, our drains get covered and some of the cleaning might take time to do so.

Just clearing those drains will help the water just drain when it comes down. Looking at your eavestroughs making sure that they're clear as well. You don't want to have leaves in them so that water can flow through. And the last one that's pretty easy is extending downspouts. So I love to take walks around the neighbourhood and kind of look at what people have going on. Some downspouts are going right into the foundation, so just think about extending it by a couple of metres into the drain, the street drain. And you're already doing so much to protect your home.

What can the city do? There's a lot that cities can do and they're working super hard. I do want to commend a few cities in Canada that have dealt with a lot of flooding over the past few years. We have older infrastructure in some cities, so our water systems are combined. The water. When those systems were built, climate change wasn't in mind. So they were built to sustain rain events that are from the past, not what we have now.

So bigger infrastructure projects are upgrading our water systems, which I've seen a lot this summer. We know summer is construction season in Canada, and I've just seen those streets being ripped up and people might be getting upset about not having, like, their streets open. But there's a reason. Exactly. An excellent reason. Next time it rains, your roads won't be flooded.

At the smaller scale, municipalities can hand out information on what homeowners can do to protect themselves from flooding. And the biggest one, and the one we were talking about, you know, during Covid, people like to be outside and enjoy nature, maintaining nature, bringing back nature. So our wetlands are incredible at stopping rain, at cleaning the water too, and really slowing it down so that flooding doesn't occur. So things think about the wetlands in your communities. Let's not build over wetlands. Let's maintain them. They're doing a lot of work for us.

Does Canada focus enough on climate adaptation and resilience? Not too much. I think we're getting there. So because the strategy just came out in 2023, it's it's slow to be implemented. We do have more funding going towards adaptation, but currently the numbers are looking at like if we have $24 for mitigation, we have $1 for adaptation. So it's very, very lopsided at this time. But we are seeing more and more funding go towards it. More of the conversations going towards protection and preparedness, which is what adaptation is. So we're getting there, but we're still a bit far from from being in the ideal place.

We're talking about the money. Let's talk about the responsibility. Whose responsibility should it be, or is it to fund fund it? Yeah. It's everyone's. And that's a terrible answer I know, but this is a whole of society approach. So if we don't all do something, homeowners, businesses, all levels of government, we're not going to do anything. When it comes to climate change mitigation or adaptation funding wise. If we do really want to look at someone, I would say a lot of the funding does come from the federal government that goes towards the provinces, but municipalities are at the forefront of climate change.

They're feeling the impacts and they are the least funded when it comes to levels of government and when people's basement floods, they kind of just say it's the government's fault. Without thinking which level of government. So more support to municipalities is exactly what we need in order to bring these projects around.

We talked about wildfires and flooding and sort of the breakdown of the responsibilities of homeowners and businesses and municipalities. On the other end, how much of climate adaptation should be from government, how much should be from the individual? It's like a 5050. So individuals have a lot that they can do themselves. And when flooding occurs, when a wildfire occurs, it's you who's losing. Even if you have ways to regain some of the loss, some of the materials can't be replaced. If a home is burned, you'll hear the stories. They're absolutely devastating. People can't replace what they've lost. So a lot of that responsibility falls on you.

But government has a huge voice in Canada. So if they were to create education programs to really raise the awareness of Canadians, I've spoken to a lot of people this past summer, and they didn't fully understand their risk level because wildfire was happening in new places this summer that we haven't seen before. So it felt maybe sorry, momentary, like it might not occur again. So a big education program, the government's in the ideal position to make that happen for Canadians so that they can understand and also provide that funding in order to do the projects.

Well, you say, you know, particularly over the last couple of years, a lot of people who are weren't prepared for fires or floods that historically have never occurred there. But do you think people are prepared to take on that responsibility? Some. It can be a lot to ask. Yeah, and it's a lot to ask. But it's also so we have other numbers. For example, for every dollar that we invest in adaptation, we have 2 to 10 of a return on investment over ten years. So even though we're asking a lot from people and some of it is free to do, like cleaning out your eavestroughs, you will see a return on it.

And it's hard to see because if a flood doesn't occur right now, you're like, why am I doing this? But if it were to occur, speak to the people that have gone through it. We have lots of stories from people that have experienced flooding. They know and they have invested to make their homes flood resilient, but also they know what the mental strain is. So it's very difficult once you've gone through an extreme event like wildfire, like flooding, to recover from that, the next time that you hear there's a fire near my home again, what that feels and the mental strain on people, I don't think we're asking too much if it means peace of mind and ownership over reducing your risk.

You talk about the emotional toll. There's a lot of anxiety around climate change just in general. Do you think this framework of adaptation and resilience can help combat, or how can we combat that? Absolutely, because it gives you something you can do right now to protect yourself, to protect your loved ones, your neighbours. So when we talk about adaptation, you know, we focus on the big on the three big ones. So wildfire, flooding and extreme heat. If we talk about extreme heat, what it does is make people sick and it can kill people.

This puts something in your hands that you can do. Just checking, for example, on the elderly, on your neighbours. It means that you can really reduce that risk and save someone's life. If that doesn't reduce some of your climate anxiety, you know, I don't know what will because this is giving you something to do that is proven to save people's lives.

Anabela I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I think the one takeaway for me at least the, the, the most, the easiest thing that I think I can do is go plant some more hostas. I think I have like 6 or 7 already in the garden, but we will keep doing that. I need more, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.