Understanding Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy

Sarah Burch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo as well as the Executive Director of the Waterloo Climate Institute. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation and is an expert in transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, innovative strategies for making progress on sustainability, and the unique contributions that small businesses can make to solving this complex challenge. She leads the international partnership-based research project TRANSFORM: Accelerating sustainability entrepreneurship experiments in local spaces and is the Director of the Sustainability Policy Research on Urban Transformations (SPROUT) Lab. Professor Burch is a Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

Joanna Eyquem is the Managing Director, Climate-Resilient Infrastructure, of Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.Joanna is an internationally-recognised expert on Climate Adaptation, Flood and Erosion Management and Nature-based Solutions, with over 20 years experience in Canada, the UK, the USA, and Western Africa. Her focus areas at the Intact Centre are (a) the role and value of nature-based solutions in managing natural hazards, (b) flood and coastal resilience from the home to the watershed-scale, (c) measures to reduce risks from extreme heat, and (d) addressing physical climate risk and nature in the finance sector. Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, Joanna was the Global Technical Practice Lead for Climate Resilience at AECOM, building on previous consultancy roles at Royal Haskoning DHV and Jacobs Engineering in the UK. Joanna is bilingual and was interviewed for over 200 anglophone / francophone media features in 2022. She sits on several advisory committees, including Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy Advisory Table on Resilient Natural and Built Infrastructure and CIWEM’s Climate Change Panel in the UK.

Sherilee Harper is a Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and Health, Kule Scholar, and an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta.  Her research investigates associations between weather, environment, and health equity in the context of climate change, and she collaborates with partners across sectors to prioritise climate-related health actions, planning, interventions, and research. She was a Lead Author on two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports; served on the Gender Task Group for the IPCC; Lead Author on Health Canada's 2022 Climate Change and Health Assessment; and Co-chaired the Government of Canada's Health and Wellbeing Advisory Table for the National Adaptation Strategy. 

Ryan Ness is the Director of Adaptation at the Canadian Climate Institute. He has 20 years of experience in climate adaptation, environmental management and strategy development, and was previously the lead for climate adaptation programs and corporate strategy at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, including heading the secretariat of the Ontario Climate Consortium. He is a professional engineer, holding Bachelors and Master’s degrees in Environmental Engineering and Water Resources Engineering from the University of Guelph, and is completing a Ph.D. in Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo.

Graeme Reed is a Strategic Advisor with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), where he advocates for the inclusion of First Nations in the federal, provincial, and territorial climate change and energy policy dialogue. He also recently completed his doctorate from the University of Guelph (2022) studying the intersection of Indigenous governance, environmental governance, and the climate crisis. His thesis, entitled Indigenous climate futures: Developing alternative visions for nature-based climate solutions, explores how Indigenous solutions can generate self-determined futures in the face of catastrophic change. In addition to research, he is keenly involved in the mobilization of knowledge, including as Coordinating Lead Author of the Indigenous Resilience Report in the National Climate Assessment and as Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He is Anishinaabe from the Great Lakes (Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory) with mixed ancestry from England, Scotland, and Germany.