Keyword Economics

Robin Tunnicliffe has farmed for almost 20 years, growing a wide range of organic vegetables for local restaurants and farmer’s markets. She remembers that “when I first started farming, my mentor gave me a list of planting dates.” This essential farmer-to-farmer teaching gave her confidence thanks to its hard-won wisdom, and she recalls thinking “Good! Now I know what I’m doing!” But she soon found that the lessons of tradition and experience were expiring, thanks in part to climate change.

Ice roads are critical for many communities – especially Indigenous ones – living in remote regions in northern Canada. These cold weather dependent routes allow essential supplies – including food and building materials – to be trucked in at a lower cost than by plane. However, in a warming climate, these connections are literally melting away.

After a 1-in-100 year storm flooded Truro, Nova Scotia under five feet of water, the conversation around town shifted to questions about the future. What’s clear to local residents is that climate change is bringing higher tides, stronger winds and flooding, leaving more and more people shouldering the costs and risks.

After a series of stronger-than-normal storms knocked out their main breakwater, the small town of Ferryland Newfoundland was left with no choice but to heavily invest in shoreline protection. Now, members of the community are left wondering whether the rising costs of living by the sea are sustainable for future generations.

An energy revolution is hitting the town of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. New 800 kW wind turbines are popping up everywhere, transforming the ever-present wind into electricity that’s used to power electric cars and offset the community’s reliance on fossil fuels. The move to renewable energy isn’t just reducing the community’s impact on the climate, it’s also sparking a whole new green economy.

On Gabriola Island, community members are beginning to notice the impacts of climate change. To reduce their ecological footprint, some residents started a non-profit organization called GabEnergy, which helps people order and install affordable solar energy systems on their homes. GabEnergy member Michael Mehta discusses the solar panels on his house and the potential for distributed, renewable energy systems across Canada.

As their oil wells began to dry up, the small community of Montana First Nation was faced an unemployment crisis. That’s when the idea of solar energy came up. The Nation founded Green Arrow Corp. Akamihk, western Canada’s first Indigenous-owned and operated community solar energy company. Green Arrow’s own team of trained community members is now installing solar panels across all of Alberta. “You hire your own people, by your people, for your people. We can do this for ourselves, we understand these types of businesses,” explains Vickie Wetchie, Montana First Nation member and general manager of Green Arrow. Wetchie describes the benefits that the community has experienced since they launched their solar company in 2012. The economic benefits–local employment, community revenue, and power savings—have been the primary motivators for pursing this energy development. There are now dozens of community members trained as skilled labourers in solar installation and maintenance.

Roy McLaren has a lifetime of farming experience: he’s farmed in southwest Manitoba for over 70 years. He looks at the Climate Atlas maps of climate projections with concern. “That is pretty bad,” he says, looking at maps showing a huge increase in very hot weather. “With that kind of heat,” McLaren muses, “we’d have to change our farming methods. We’d have to adopt new crops.”

In 2009, Vancouver announced that it wanted to become the “Greenest City in the World by 2020”. Their action plan hopes to wean the city off fossil fuels and prioritizes pedestrians, bikes and transit when planning neighborhoods. As a result, Vancouver now has the lowest carbon emissions of any city in North America.

Today, over 80% of Canada’s population lives in cities. We know that cities will soon face increased climate change impacts, such as more frequent and intense extreme weather events.  The research series Building a Climate-Resilient City by the Prairie Climate Centre outlines policy steps that cities can take to engage in climate risk management in a range of areas, including transportation, agriculture, electricity infrastructure, disaster preparedness and emergency management.