(Montreal) National governments are not yet ready to adapt to the consequences of the climate crisis, according to a meta-analysis of more than 1,500 scientific articles by a network of 126 researchers.
Posted at 5:14 p.m.
As natural disasters become more and more frequent, “the vast majority of actions documented so far in the scientific literature have been taken at the local level, by households or by individuals”, indicates the text.
It must be said that the issues vary enormously from one region to another, which does not allow for a panacea solution. However, “there is still not a sufficient level of centralized leadership in government policy and funding,” explained assistant professor of geography, planning and environment at Concordia University and co-author of the study, Alexandra Lesnikowski, in a telephone interview.
“It’s something that’s becoming more and more urgent,” she said, as Canada recently suffered “really catastrophic events like the heat wave in the West and the wildfires that it has caused, the terrible floods that we have seen in different parts of the country, the rise in sea level in Atlantic Canada, the melting permafrost in the North”.
However, she remains optimistic about the direction Canada is taking, as “we have seen certain regions of the country take strong action more quickly”. She looks forward to the publication of the country’s first National Adaptation Strategy, which will be presented by the federal government next fall. “We need much clearer political targets on adaptation […], we have to start thinking about what this means in concrete terms for different parts of the country. »
In comparison, France created its first of two action plans in 2011 and the United Kingdom is also on its second national adaptation programme, the first having been published in 2013. The United States does not have one. always not.
Since 2018, Canada has had a Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.
To leave, or to stay?
Adapting to the climate crisis can be a host of small details to consider in urban planning, explained Prof. Lesnikowski. Let us take, for example, heat waves, where we should “ensure the capacity of our health system” to manage the situation, but also provide air-conditioned public places, “plant trees” in neighborhoods that have few and even “changing the types of materials in our buildings, so that they absorb less heat”.
Unfortunately, small tweaks like these won’t always be enough, she warned.
In the case of floods such as those that have occurred in Quebec in recent years, there are certain measures that we can indeed take to limit the extent of the damage, such as “building our houses a little differently”. But we also have to decide “if there are places that are now too dangerous to live in”, and where all the measures in the world will never be enough.
Moreover, according to the results of the survey, only “few studies attempt to assess the effectiveness of the measures” that are taken. Not being sure that a solution actually works could cause problems in the future, according to the PD Lesnikowski, how time is against us.
In any case, “it is also very important to keep in mind that different communities will be disproportionately affected by climate change due to factors such as inequity, poverty, etc. »
The future still uncertain
It is still possible to adapt to the upheavals that are fast approaching, but only if we reduce air pollution enough.
“It’s a reality that we already live, but the severity of the risks is something that we still have the power to change,” said the researcher. The future is not cast in stone. »
“If we can meet the targets we have set for reducing greenhouse gases and raising the global temperature to 1.5°C, that will greatly improve our chances. »
The first part of the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made public in 2021, concluded “that unless there are immediate, rapid and massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting global warming around 1.5°C, or even 2°C, will be out of reach”.
The article “A systemic global stocktable of evidence on human adaptation to climate change” was published in November 2021 in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.