Local leaders call for stronger provincial support as climate crisis outpaces Canada’s response

This year is on track to become the hottest year ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The situation is similarly alarming closer to home, with the Greater Toronto Area breaking a 65-year-old November temperature record on November 6.

“This year, we’ve suffered the hottest day, and the hottest seas, in the history books. The climate crisis is here. We can’t postpone protection. We must adapt – now,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement following the release of the Adaptation Gap Report 2024.

The future of the planet is at stake, and “as we get closer and closer to the point of no return, our messages are getting more and more urgent,” United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Inger Andersen said during the report’s launch, calling on nations to “step up and not just give empty promises.”

For years, the United Nations has been sounding the alarm about the climate emergency, stressing that the window to act is closing fast. The UNEP stresses the critical role of G20 nations and developed countries such as Canada in bridging the “huge gaps that exist between adaptation finance needs and current international public adaptation finance flows.”

But why does the burden fall on developed countries to close the gap, you may ask?

“Historically, about two thirds of total carbon emissions have been from North America and Europe,” Jeffrey Sun, assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto told The Pointer. “The economic cost of these emissions for developing countries amounts to trillions—potentially tens of trillions—of dollars per year whereas the total adaptation finance in 2022 was only around $28 billion.”

The UNEP report highlights that this number rose from (US) $22 billion in 2021, representing the largest year-on-year increase since the Paris Agreement and reflects progress toward the Glasgow Climate Pact, which urged developed nations to at least double adaptation finance to developing countries from (US) $19 billion in 2019, by 2025. 

“However, even if the Glasgow Climate Pact’s finance target is met, it would only reduce the adaptation finance gap, estimated to be between (US) $187 billion and (US) $359 billion annually, by about 5 percent,” the report warns.

Wildfires are becoming more common and more devastating as the climate warms.

(B.C. Wildfire Service)

The report, titled ‘Come Hell and High Water,’ stresses the urgent need for countries to “dramatically increase climate adaptation efforts,” starting with financial commitments at the upcoming 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22.

The international climate summit will not only bring world leaders together to forge a plan for financing climate action in developing nations, but it will also serve as a precursor to COP30 in Brazil next year. At COP30, nations will be required to submit updated plans detailing how they will meet their Paris Agreement obligations and stay on track with the 1.5-degree Celsius target, through their nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

These new NDCs, due in February 2025, are expected to include targets and measures through to 2035. UNEP is urging countries to strengthen their commitments by “adopting a strong new collective quantified goal for climate finance and including stronger adaptation components” in their next NDCs.

“That will be the moment of reality check,” Andersen said.

As highlighted in this year’s Emissions Gap Report, titled ‘No More Hot Air … Please!,’ nations must update their NDCs to collectively reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 42 percent by 2030. This is especially critical given that emissions rose by 1.3 percent within a year in 2023 compared to 2022.

“A failure to increase ambition in these new NDCs and start delivering immediately would put the world on course for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1 degrees over the course of this century. This would bring debilitating impacts to people, planet and economies,” the report noted.

Since signing the Paris Agreement in 2016, it took Canada seven years to launch its first national climate adaptation strategy on July 4, 2023—during the country’s worst wildfire season on record. Wildfires in both the eastern and western parts of Canada released a staggering 160 million tonnes of carbon.

For those who don’t remember, let’s jog our memory to the week when not only the Greater Toronto Area but even New York city was blanketed in smoke turning the skies an eerie orange.

Public health authorities issued air quality alerts, advising residents to stay indoors as wildfire smoke was linked to increased rates of heart attacks, strokes, and respiratory issues, which resulted in more emergency room visits.

It had only taken seven years and a record breaking wildfire season for a country that’s known for being a climate champion to unveil their national adaptation action plan. 

Top, the Mississauga skyline on a normal day. Bottom, the same picture in June 2023 when wildfire smoke blanketed the GTA.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer Files)

In a press release unveiling the action plan, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change highlighted that the federal government had invested $6.5 billion in climate change adaptation since 2015, including $284 million for the Wildfire Resilient Futures Initiative and $164.2 million for the Flood Hazard Identification and Mapping Program since November 2022. This also includes an additional $2 billion committed since the fall of 2022.

This may seem like enough, but is it?

As I walked through downtown Brampton on a windy afternoon, speaking with residents to gather their perspectives, one common question emerged: Why do we even need funds separately for climate change?

“There's a case that needs to be made to the Canadian public that clarifies that if we don't invest now, investing later is going to cost us a heck of a lot more when we look at the costs of major climate events that are happening around the world right now,” the UNEP report’s lead author of the chapter on capacity-building and technology transfer and cooperation, and associate professor at McGill University Blane Harvey told The Pointer.

As reported by The Pointer multiple times previously, natural catastrophes and severe weather events caused over $3.1 billion in insured damage for two consecutive years with 2023 being “the fourth-worst year for insured losses” in the country, as per the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

While wildfires may seem distant for GTA residents, flooding has become an increasing concern, with Mississauga's creeks and rivers overflowing into parks and greenspaces this August, marking the second once-in-a-century storm in just a month, causing traffic disruptions, dangerous road conditions, closures, and overwhelmed basements. 

Firefighters removing occupants from stranded cars on Highway 410 on Aug. 18, 2024 when heavy rainfall caused flooding in the Greater Toronto Area.

(Mississauga Fire/X)

Mississauga's Climate Change Action Plan projects more frequent severe weather, with storms expected every six years. 

This is where adaptation finance comes in.

Since 2016, Mississauga has invested over $231.5 million in stormwater infrastructure, with $33.7 million allocated this year and plans to invest $342.5 million over the next decade. 

However, an additional $30 million per year is needed to fully fund the city’s aging stormwater pipes.

Flooding in Brampton’s Churchill neighbourhood in 2022.

(City of Brampton)

Similarly, in February 2022, large parts of Brampton's historic Churchville neighborhood were submerged in six feet of water after the Credit River overflowed due to ice blockages, forcing evacuations and putting homes in the floodplain at risk. To address flooding, Brampton's 2024 budget allocated $87.3 million for the Etobicoke Creek Riverwalk project, a $106 million initiative designed to prevent flooding in the city center.

(City of Brampton)

“Flooding is the number one cause of public emergency in Ontario. It’s the number one natural disaster in Canada. It’s costing Canadians more than any other climate issue,” Mary-Margaret McMahon, Liberal MPP for Beaches—East York, said in the legislature that year while introducing the Bill titled, ‘Fewer Floods, Safer Ontario.’

“[Bill 56] can save your residents hardship, financially, physically and mentally. We are public servants. We are here to serve the public,” McMahon had said in a debate during the Bill’s second reading. 

However, the bill was voted down, with 33 votes in favor and 64 against. One of the dissenting voices, PC MPP Ric Bresee, argued that local conservation authorities (CAs) should be trusted with flood prevention, citing their expertise.

In 2020, the Ontario government passed Bill 229, which weakened CAs’ authority by allowing the province to override their decisions on development permits, even when public safety and the environment were at risk. Bill 23, passed in December 2022, further eroded CA powers by repealing 36 regulations in the Conservation Authorities Act, including those related to pollution control and land conservation. It also made it easier for unchecked development in flood-prone areas by altering the wetland evaluation system and amending the Greenbelt Act.

Most recently, the PC government introduced Bill 212, which exempts Highway 413 from environmental assessments, despite the highway cutting through the province’s Greenbelt ultimately contributing to climate change.

Modelling by Environmental Defence shows Highway 413 could cause between $1 billion and $1.4 billion dollars in cumulative damages from air pollution by 2050 while leading to an increase in GHG emissions as well as urban sprawl.

What the PC government often overlooks is that developments like these, as well as climate change, will directly impact the residents of Ontario's municipalities surrounding these projects.

“Municipalities, and especially smaller cities, towns and regions, are having a harder time meeting the demands of a changing climate,” Mississauga Ward 2 Councillor Alvin Tedjo said in a statement shared with The Pointer. “Through my work at the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, I have seen how cities around the Great Lakes, through no fault of their own, are struggling with a lack of adequate resources to plan for the effects of climate change and to start taking proactive measures.”

Another major barrier to effective adaptation is the flow of climate finance. A recent Oxfam audit revealed that nearly 40 percent of climate funds disbursed by the World Bank over the past seven years — amounting to up to $41 billion — remains unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping. 

“There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible. It also remains unclear whether these funds were even spent on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy,” the audit report titled ‘Climate Finance Unchecked’ highlighted.

“This gap in resources, knowledge, and funding has been taken up by non-profits, such as the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, and need to receive better funding and standards from the Province of Ontario. The province needs to take a stronger a leadership role to ensure that climate mitigation policies across the province are uniform and robust, though initiatives like establishing consistent Green Development Standards for new builds, model Climate Action Plans smaller cities can take off the shelf, and provide more infrastructure funding to ensure that every city can meet the needs of a changing climate,” Tedjo concluded.

Alongside unlocking innovative adaptation financial support, the UNEP report recommends strengthening technical support through capacity building and technology transfer is needed to enhance the effectiveness of adaptation efforts, which are often “uncoordinated, expensive and short term.”

Harvey emphasizes on the need for a balanced approach that emphasizes both "hard" technologies—such as renewable energy and agricultural innovations—and "soft" capacities, like enabling conditions while placing gender equality and social inclusion considerations at their center.

He says that a major issue, both in Canada and globally, is the lack of evidence on what interventions work for whom, and whether funds are even “reaching the people who need help the most, which is a critical issue when considering equity and inclusion across various social groups, including women, Indigenous and First Nations communities, and other historically marginalized groups.”

In Canada, one of the lowest allocations of funding, at $12 million, went to the Climate Change and Health Adaptation for First Nations and Inuit Communities program.

“There's little evidence that interventions are specifically tailored to their needs, even though we know they are often the most vulnerable,” he said. “To address this, it's essential to place the expectations and unique needs of these underrepresented groups at the heart of our strategies. This means involving them in the strategy development and planning process, ensuring they have a seat at the table.” 

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