In the media: Here's what climate change could look like in Canada

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

water institute members in the media button
Experts, including Water Institute member Blair Feltmate, examine the economic impacts of the faster-than-anticipated pace of climate change in Canada that was depicted in a recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

"In Canada, now, the expression of extreme weather risk, the number one negative manifestation by far is flooding," said Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo. "Flooding is the most expensive cost in Canada to extreme weather by a country mile, and specifically, basement flooding."

"This is real on-the-ground stuff that is costing us right now."

Blair notes that, from 1983 to 2008, the cost of catastrophic insurable events annually ranged from $250 million to $500 million. Since 2009, however, in eight out of nine years, these costs have ballooned up to $1 billion or more a year, with a $1.8 billion average. 

Read the full story by the CBC.