Wildfire season officially wraps up at the end of October. And if you didn't see the flames, there's a good chance you smelled the smoke.

Across Canada, fires are getting more frequent or intense. You probably heard the same thing about storms and heat waves. That's climate change, and it's making extreme weather our new normal.

So, what can we actually do about it? We can tackle the source of the problem by reducing emissions. That's known as mitigation. We can change how we live and build to limit damage. That's called adaptation.

But here's the question. Are those two ideas in conflict? Can we do both at the same time? What should cities be doing right now to prepare?

Welcome to the rundown.

What does building climate resilience look like? Annabella Bonata is managing director of climate science at the INTAC Center on Climate Adaptation based at the University of Wateroo. She says Canada shouldn't just respond to disasters, it should also prepare for them too.

Welcome to our program, Annabelle. How are you?

Good. How are you?

I'm doing well. All right. We're here to talk about climate adaptation. What is it?

Excellent question. Um, so it's very different from mitigation. We hear a lot about mitigation in the media for maybe the last even 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 behavior to adapt um to the climbing uh the changing climate. Um, so with changing climate, we're seeing more wildfire, more flooding occur, extreme heat. So we have these uh like long uh 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 10 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 5 years really. Um but part of the conversation for the last 10.

I want to pick up on a point you just made. Um if we are focusing on uh the adaptation part, are we sort of giving up on the 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 uh 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, um, 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'll 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 year.

So, fairly recent.

Super recent. Yeah, we're still kind of learning our way through it. Um 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. Uh so we're still implementing those strategies um 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. Um if we were to look at adaptation, what does it look like in the terms of wildfires?

There are different levels of adaptation for wildfire. So we can start at the home level.

Yeah. There's so much that people can do and I 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 season's ending,

right? 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. Um if you have mulching, consider changing that to like soil um to changing it to rocks and like that will really prevent your home from burning or being in danger. Um most homes burn from embers. So even if a wildfire is not occurring close to your community, um 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 buildup 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 2 mters. Um and that way the fire has nowhere to go. You're just cutting those areas so the fire can't travel. Um, 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 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 fire brakes around those areas. We also need to make sure we have enough firefighting uh water, for example. So, some of the fires that occurred in 2023, there just wasn't enough fire uh sorry, enough water to fight those fires off. So, making sure that's always up to par. Um that's considered adaptation and preparedness. Uh making sure that people are aware of their risk and providing um educational resources, that's considered preparedness as well. That doesn't cost municipalities or businesses anything to do. Um, 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 the that wildland urban interface where wildfires happen, um, 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 um businesses, what we learned during co is that we a lot of people used nature forests as sort of a third space. I myself love planting. I've I've got a beautiful garden that I like to tend to.

It might be hard for a lot of people who 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, you know, perhaps it's not uh 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 cuz 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 a wildfire risk. Um, so first, are you at risk of wildfire? And if you are, and and you should know from what we've seen the past 5 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 fireresistant, fire resilient. Um, Fires Smart BC has an incredible list of plants that are fireresistant. 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 I didn't know this.

I'm not a big gardener. Um, so for gardeners, there are tons of beautiful plants that they can plant close to the home. Um, and just maintain them, keep them moisturized. Uh, you want to make sure that they're like wet. If your plants dry out, you're creating a hazard for your home. So, h maintaining a good garden is actually perfect for for fire resilience.

You talked about uh water uh keeping your plants wet. I want to talk about flooding now. Um, from a homeowner's perspective, uh, 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. Um, so look around your home. What what do you have? If you have a basement, um, 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 w water resistant for your valuables. So in case that your fa basement floods, you can protect it. So you're looking at like about 30 cm to keep things raised. Um 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. Um so like take a walk around your neighborhood and you'll see that with the leaves that are falling now in the fall, um our drains get covered and some of the cleaning might take time to do. Um, so just clearing those drains will help the water just drain when it comes down. Um, looking at your eve straws, making sure that they're clear as well. You don't want to have leaves in them so that water can flow through. Um, and the last one that's pretty easy is extending down spouts. So, I love to take walks around the neighborhood and kind of look at what people have going on. Um, some downspouts are going right into the foundation. So, just think about um extending it by a couple of meters into the drain uh 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 I do want to commend a few cities in Canada that have dealt with a lot of flooding over the past few years. Um we have older infrastructure in some cities, so our water systems are combined. Um the water uh 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 uh summer is construction season in Canada and I've just seen those like streets being ripped up and people might be getting upset about not having uh like their streets open, but there's a reason. Exactly. An excellent reason. Next time it rains, your roads won't be flooded. Um at the smaller scale, municipalities can hand out information on what homeowners can do um to protect themselves from flooding. And the biggest one and the the one we were talking about, you know, during co people like to be outside and enjoy nature, maintaining nature, um bringing back nature. So our wetlands are incredible at stopping rain, at cleaning the water, too. Um and really slowing it down so that flooding doesn't occur. So thinks 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?

Uh, 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. Uh 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. Um but we are seeing more and more funding go towards it. More of the conversation going towards protection and preparedness, which is what adaptation is. So we're getting there, but we're still a bit far um from from being in the ideal place.

We're talking about the money. Let's talk about uh the responsibility. Whose responsibility should it be or is it uh to fund fund it?

Yeah. Um it's everyone's and that's a terrible answer, I know. Um 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 to mitigation or adaptation.

Funding wise, if we do really want to, you know, 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 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.

Yeah.

So, more support to municipalities is exactly what we need in order to bring these projects around.

We talked about um wildfires and flooding and sort of the breakdown of uh 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 50/50. So, um, 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, um, 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. Um, but government has a huge voice in Canada. So, if they were to create education programs to really raise the awareness of Canadians, um 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 moment mon uh sorry, momentary like it might not occur again. Um, so a big education program, the the government's in this the ideal position to make that happen for Canadians so that they can understand and also provide that funding in order to um do the projects.

Well, you say, you know, particularly over the last couple years, a lot of people who are uh weren't prepared uh for fires or floods that uh historically have never occurred there. Um but do you think people are prepared to take on that responsibility?

some it can be a lot to ask.

Yeah. And it's it's a lot to ask. Um 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 10 years. So even though we're asking a lot from people and some of it is free to do like cleaning out your eaves,

um you will see uh 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 um and they have invested to make their homes flood resilient. Um 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 um 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 um 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 neighbors. Um 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. Um, this puts something in your hands that you can do. Just checking, for example, on the elderly, on your neighbors. Um, it means that you can really reduce that risk and save someone's life. If that doesn't reduce some of your um 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.

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

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Climate change is already a major issue for cities, but according to Adam Squeles, part of the solution might come from nature itself. He's an environmental scientist who's doing a PhD at the University of Wateroo, studying how urban ecosystems can help cities prepare for extreme weather.

Hey, Adam, how's it going?

Good, thanks.

Thanks so much for joining us. I thought we would meet in the park since we're talking about trees. It seems adequate. Let's start with the basics. What is nature-based solution?

Yeah. So, a nature-based solution is when we use nature intentionally to address some kind of societal challenge. So, the challenges can vary. You can lots of problems to solve for society, but uh so you can kind of do it either there's typically three different types of nature-based solutions where you can either restore nature that's already there, just conserve nature that's there, or just, you know, install an entirely new park or create a whole new forest. So, build something from scratch. You make this argument of of intentionality that we need to start thinking about nature-based solutions. Why is it important in urban areas like the one that we're in? We're in the city of Toronto right now. We are in a park. But uh why is it important that we think about it?

I think it's especially important in urban areas because these natural environments provide a lot of benefits to people. And these benefits can range from providing an area for recreation or just a comfortable area to sit outdoors. Like right now it's a you know a lot more comfortable temperature here than if we were in the middle of the street something like that. So and there's a lot of competing interests in urban environments which makes it uh tricky. You know lots of people want to develop housing build stores. So uh the intentional part is uh especially key because there's a lot of competing interests for land uses.

All right. I want to break down where we can use nature-based solutions when we think about climate adaptation. So we're going to throw some things at you.

Sure.

Extreme heat. That sounds like an obvious one, but how do trees and nature help with that?

Yeah, so multiple ways. So if we just take a tree as an example, so there's something called vapot transanspiration that kind of works similar to how people sweat, right? So it helps kind of cool off the surrounding environment. Also, of course, trees uh tend to provide quite a lot of shade. Shade makes things a lot more comfortable as well. And uh they tend to absorb a lot less the heat than uh built infrastructure. So, as I talked about earlier with the road, like the road's going to absorb a lot more heat and people are going to feel a lot more heat compared to if they're next to a tree, for example.

Let's talk flooding.

Yes.

How does nature-based solutions help with flooding?

Yeah. So, in a similar way, so I guess coming back to the evapot transpiration part, so trees will absorb a lot of storm water. So, if there's a huge storm, then uh all the trees will absorb that water through their root system and then gradually um evaporate that water into the atmosphere. Of course, they use some for their own growth as well. Um, also just if you think of like lawns or soils, um, that permeability compared to like a road surface really helps um, absorb the storm water. So, it stops all the storm water from like overloading the pipes, for example, where you can allow it to just slowly percolate back into the groundwater system.

I'm imagining astroturf is not something that uh, we love so much.

Yeah. It uh, doesn't have all the same benefits.

Okay. Um, air pollution. Yeah, that's another way. So, if you continuing with the example of a tree, right? So, um some air pollutants will actually be absorbed directly into the tree. So, as a trees like breathing, for example, but a whole bunch of other ones like particulate matter will temporarily get attached to the tree's surface.

what are we talking about particulate matter?

You might see on some like air pollution metrics like PM 2.5 or something like that. So, this stuff's really bad for you if you inhale. So, um, whenever like forest fires the past few years, when we get that smoke in this area, you'll be able to see like the particulate matter increasing and, uh, you can feel that when it gets pretty high, it's much harder to breathe, but some of that actually attaches to the tree and then will slowly get like pulled out of the air.

Does there need to be do we need to do a better job at uh, sort of bringing the awareness of not only trees but other sort of nature-based solutions to the general public? I I I mean biased for me but yeah I think so. Um I think that we are gradually getting a lot better. So I think compared to like 20 years ago just from me like reading the literature and being more familiar with it these types of topics and uh themes are really becoming a lot more popular. Uh particularly with climate change when we're trying to figure out how we can adapt to you know extreme heat and flooding. Uh especially heat I'm sure everyone here like we all recognize that it's getting warmer and warmer over time. So being able to use nature intentionally can uh really help in that way. And I think some people might be like implicitly aware of these things like you know they might enjoy spending time in the park but they just not it might not necessarily click about all the benefits that are being provided.

I want to talk regulations. Okay. What's available for developers and planners to sort of incorporate uh nature when they build?

Yeah. So there's a a whole lot that can go into that. Um the one thing that I tend to highlight from my past study is uh green development standards which is something that's starting to become a lot more popular in Ontario. So it started in like the mid uh like 2000 to 2010 like in there and it's gradually expanded out to about 14 municipalities now maybe a little more. Some have been implemented in the past few months I'm not aware of. But uh yeah, so these types of standards allow people when they're proposing to build like a new subdivision or something like that or a new condo building um how they can um make sure that the development is more uh environmentally friendly like sustainable. So it factors in aspects related to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

You mentioned 14 municipalities. There's over 400 in this province. So we're I'm sure we're a bit short there in terms of reaching some goals. How do different municipalities go and create uh their own uh green development standards?

Yeah. So there's uh there's some wider partnerships. So like the clean air partnership is an organization that's really helped some municipalities uh bring these forward. Um I think now that there are a lot of examples, people will then look toward the other municipalities that have already successfully implemented them. So the Toronto Green Standard was one of the earliest standards that were implemented and I know that a lot of other municipalities have referenced that standard when they're creating their own. So I think just looking toward other examples and building up from there.

So you mentioned Toronto, we're obviously in Toronto. Tell us how uh the city is working on uh their standards and how they're sort of incentivizing developers uh to consider nature in their planning.

Yeah. No, that's a good one. So, uh, Toronto is actually one of unique in a sense where they actually provide incentives, uh, financial incentives for developers to go beyond minimum requirements to try to get them to do things that are more sustainable. So, an example is that um, so I guess with the Toronto Green Standard, you start out there's a tier one, so it's a tiered system and with tier one, that's just a requirement for all development applications that uh, come to the city. But then beyond that there's like tiers two and three and those are actually optional but if you achieve those metrics then you get a development charge rebate as part of the development. So there is a financial incentive for people to go beyond that and uh some of the examples of um the more optional components. One would be like if you uh try to quantify how much uh carbon is stored in the landscape. So if you try to do a good job like incorporating vegetation and having uh try to help reduce greenhouse gases created from the development so you can get like extra credit for that.

Should there be more of a provincewide standard for naturebased solutions?

Yeah, I think that would be helpful because I think um municipalities uh look toward the province for what they are consider important. So um we have something called the provincial planning statement in Ontario.

What's that?

And then so that's something that's updated semi-regularly. The last time it was updated was in 2024, so last year. And that provides the policy guidelines for all municipalities to follow. So then municipalities will then use their own official plans or zoning bylaws that as long as they conform with that provincial planning statement. So that kind of sets out the broad agenda for municipalities. And one and it covers a whole bunch of different aspects like uh how you should protect people from natural hazards. So protect development from natural hazards or uh you know just build things more energy efficient, support transit, these types of things. But then uh another part of that is also um it promotes like green infrastructure which is you know the trees that we're talking about.

Is there more that can be done with that or just looking at it? You mentioned sort of the swath of of sort of guidelines on there. Is it specific enough? Is it intentional in the way that we talk about naturebased solutions? I think it could be far more intentional with how it supports nature-based solutions because it's um it's supportive in the sense that it encourages people to try to uh incorporate green infrastructure uh low impact development these types of things that encourage um you know using nature-based solutions but uh it could definitely do a better job by I guess directly connecting that to uh like societal challenges that we have and encouraging those nature-based solutions to be intentionally used to combat specific problems.

I think it could be far more intentional with how it supports nature-based solutions because it's um it's supportive in the sense that it encourages people to try to uh incorporate green infrastructure uh low impact development these types of things that encourage um you know using nature-based solutions but uh it could definitely do a better job by I guess directly connecting that to uh like societal challenges that we have and encouraging those nature-based solutions to be intentionally used to combat specific problems.

When we talk about regulations,

developers across this province are probably like, great,

more red tape, more things that we need to go through. Uh the city of Toronto recently uh had updated and introduced thermal comfort guidelines. Another example of, you know, thinking about how we as this planet gets warmer, how we can incorporate it. But one of the things and criticisms were, do these things have teeth? Uh will they stand? And also, can we in this housing crisis that we have have more regulations? Can we handle more?

Yeah, I think that's honestly going to be a question that never goes away. I think there's going to be a constant tension between um, you know, what's considered red tape versus what are required studies, like required components of development. I think that's something that'll be constantly negotiated into the future and that's a key part of planning. Um so I think as we recognize different benefits of different ways that we build um you know our standards will evolve like what we want to achieve. So for example um you know 30 years ago no one was really talking about building net zero homes right and now that's something that's going to be in the building code soon. That's something that's supported by um the current provincial planning statement.

I live in a neighborhood in the city where I wish there were more trees. I see a lot of concrete. Uh, and I'm sure there are lots of people who might be listening or watching this and go like, well, you know, more trees, more forest means more wildlife, more maintenance, more headaches, more problems. What do you say to those people who can't get past uh those initial barriers?

Yeah, I would say that's where it comes back to the education component, I think, where we can really share and emphasize that there's pros, there's not only cons, right? So, I I mean there are definitely always going to be some cons, right? Like, you know, branches will fall and damage property. Um people will have to clean up leaves, these types of things. But, um there are still those benefits that I think are important to emphasize and reinforce.

I myself love raking my leaves, so I will always uh be enjoying that. Adam, thank you so much. This was really insightful. Really appreciate it.

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

And that's it for the rundown. What do you want to see on the show? Email us at rundowntvo.org or reach out to me on Instagram at jnjenovven. Tell us about the topics that matter to you and what you think is working or not working so far. Because Ontario, this is your show. See you tomorrow.