Flooding is the biggest impact Canadians will face as a result of climate change. Canada’s has an incredible amount of surface fresh water and the most coastline in the world – with rising sea levels and unpredictable weather. According to Julie Wright, the new director of Partners for Action (P4A) we can’t rely on historical models anymore to protect us from dangerous and expensive flooding in the future.
“We need to prepare for the future which requires a new kind of awareness-building, says Wright. “We will only realize deep, accelerated climate action by working across sectors, disciplines, social groups, and generations. I bring this lens to P4A and will build on the fantastic foundation that’s already there.”
Prior to joining P4A Wright worked for a decade in public affairs where her focus was on systems level transition – including decarbonization of our electricity systems globally, equitable access to electricity services, and how we can implement the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Each of those are big, complex issues with numerous stakeholder networks.
“The big themes for me in this new role will be collaboration, strategic foresight and accelerating the path from research to impactful action,” she says.
For Wright, perhaps the biggest challenge she sees in how we can prepare for climate change nation-wide, is the lack of policy coherence across orders of government (municipal, provincial/territorial, federal) to respond to flooding. The unfortunate reality is that only 6 per cent of Canadians surveyed are aware that they live in designated flood risk areas. How can you prioritize preparedness when you don’t know you’re at risk?
“There’s a real juggernaut between individual responsibility and collective responsibility and we’re missing critical pieces of the puzzle all along the continuum.”
Partners for Action works to be that critical piece. Based out of the Faculty of Environment, P4A was founded with support from The Co-operators Group Ltd. and Farm Mutual Re. To build bridges between awareness and action P4A does innovative, practical research and fosters relationships to fund research. Its shares results and best practices, to reduce risk of flooding and P4A facilitates collaboration between researchers, governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations. It also has its work cut out informing Canadians about their flood risk, actions they can take to reduce their risk, and opportunities for risk transfer, such as insurance.
“We don’t have good data – as a homeowner, you can’t look up your house on a map and easily determine if you live on a floodplain,” she says.
Under the leadership of previous director Anna Ziolecki P4A learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t when communicating about and preparing for floods.
“We have the opportunity now to collaborate with other groups across the Disaster Risk and Resilience sector — which includes wildfire and earthquake — to share what we know and learn more about the barriers they face and what’s been working for them,” she says.
The entire P4A team which also includes researchers Jason Thistlethwaite, Leah Whittaker, Evalyna Bogdan, Liton Chowdhury and Shawna Hamilton. Ziolecki remains with the organization in a more limited role. Together they understand of work to be done to help Canadians who are at highest risk prepare for natural hazards like flooding, wildfire and earthquakes.
“Our goal is to learn more about what they want and need through community-level surveying and focus groups,” says Wright. “We’ll also continue our work investigating best practice in helping Canadians relocate from areas that have become chronically flood-prone. This work will include community consultation and policy recommendations.”
