Canada’s largest national conference on climate change adaptation was held last month in Vancouver, British Columbia. This conference brought together practitioners and academics from coast to coast to coast, including members of the Canadian Coastal Resilience Forum.
Adaptation Canada 2020 is focused on gathering practitioners, academics, government (federal, provincial, municipal & indigenous), industry and non-governmental agencies together to explore the latest climate projections, nature-based solutions, innovations, impacts and opportunities for climate risk reduction. This year’s conference theme focused on ‘raising our resilience game’ in communities, ecosystems and economies across Canada. The call to action which echoed across the three days emphasized the need for incremental and transformational adaptation strategies to be implemented across all socio-economic systems and tiers of government.
This year’s opening keynote speaker for the conference was Per Espen Stoknes—a TED Global Speaker, Associate Professor and renowned psychologist—who spoke about why human brains ignore climate change and what to do about it. He conditioned the idea that humans have five inner psychological defences (or “5 D’s”) that stop them from engaging with climate change news and messaging.
The first D is psychological distance from climate change where people do not believe they will be personally impacted by climate change (e.g., climate change will happen elsewhere, and in the future). The second D is doom which deters people from engaging with climate change because it is framed as a loss or sacrifice, and not paired with solutions. The third D is dissonance which promotes doubt in climate change science as climate change can conflict with people’s day-to-day practices and activities that they enjoy (e.g., eating meat, driving a car). The fourth D is denial where people deny the existence of climate change and are critical of those who believe otherwise. The last D is iDentity which includes filtering information based on political and cultural believes, such as when people scan the news and only believe articles from newspapers that align with their political views.
Well, how do we break through these barriers?
Simple, here are 5 ways to further engagement;
- Be Social – Make the message personal by spreading social norms that are positive to solutions;
- Be Supportive – Reframe climate as human health, new tech opportunities or jobs so that we frame 3 positive or supportive framings to 1 climate threat (3:1 conversation ratio);
- Be Simple – By making better choices, we can make climate friendly behaviors the default or convenient choice;
- Signals – Tailor signals that visualize our progress by providing motivating feedback;
- Tell a Story – Illustrate stories of deep transformation signaling signs of feedback and highlighting the hero’s/heroines who are igniting real change!
Representatives from the Ministry of Environment & Climate Change BC and Health Canada emphasized the need for sustained engagement through the use of preparedness strategies and stress-testing scenarios in order to better manage risks in communities who face repeated flooding, wildfires and or threat of tornadoes. The use of an adaptation strategy can be used as a catalyst for different agencies to engage and work collaboratively together on common goals. Presenters emphasized the need to engage with the wider community (i.e. community forums, social media engagement, online surveys) to better understand their needs in order to build capacities and plan for actions that can help to form resilient societies
A key theme that was consistently addressed throughout the conference was the need to shift towards informed decision making. Mobilizing towards a proactive stance as oppose to reactionary will help communities assess, plan and implement mitigation pathways to reduce the severity of future natural hazards. By pre-emptively accounting for climate risks municipalities can accurately conduct risks assessments on vital systems, critical infrastructure and valuable assets to mitigate the long-term consequences of climate change.
There was also an increased presence of youth delegates at Adaptation 2020 who were focused on climate advocacy, knowledge mobilization and creative action research intended to empower people beyond conventional research communities. The youth climate action session focused on empowering and mobilizing youth as resilience innovators and transformative leaders to address disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
Here are 10 takeaways that I found valuable to engage youth:
- Create open, inclusive and welcoming environments;
- Express genuine care & interest;
- Recognize youth as valuable;
- Support youth gaining something new;
- Create an enjoyable process;
- Cultivate opportunities for impact;
- Make what you do accessible;
- Offer engagement;
- Focus on building connections;
- Align interests!
Visit Adaptation Canada for more information about the conference.
Andrea Minano (left) and Shaieree Cottar (right) at the Sheraton Wall Centre during Adaptation 2020 in Vancouver, British Columbia.