Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), Nova Scotia:

Susan Chalmers, Masters of Environmental Studies Candidate at York, continues her installments on climate change adaptation in Canadian coastal communities by discussing the results of her research. The current blog highlights the adaptation work underway in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax, Nova Scotia

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In 2004, the regional municipality began to develop Climate SMART – the Sustainable Mitigation and Adaptation Risk Toolkit. The main goal of this initiative is to mainstream mitigation and adaptation into decision-making and create management and planning tools to help the municipality address climate risks and reduce emissions. A steering committee, comprised of members of the municipality and the private sector, formed the conceptual model, while a working group of government officials created specific policies and strategies. Currently, the Energy and Environment Office coordinates and oversees climate change planning in the municipality. Compared to Saanich, Halifax Regional Municipality’s approach to climate change adaptation has been to incorporate it into the regional plan, various functional plans and municipal policies instead of creating a separate adaptation plan.

To assist its business units in preparing for and reducing climate impacts, the regional municipality developed a number of tools, including cost/benefit assessments, community based vulnerability analysis, sustainability analysis, environmental impact assessments, a Climate Change Risk Assessment Protocol, and a Risk Management Strategy. In creating the latter document, Halifax primarily followed the Canadian Standards Association’s risk management guidelines, which consists of the following six steps: 1) initiation; 2) preliminary analysis of impacts and vulnerabilities; 3) risk estimation; 4) risk evaluation; 5) risk control; and 6) action and monitoring. This strategy clearly outlined a number of possible adaptation actions for different departments in order to address impacts to water resources, infrastructure, coastal zones, and other sectors. Some have been implemented along with new measures.

To minimize water resource and infrastructure risks, the Halifax Regional Water Commission is adjusting its rate structure to increase water conservation, adopting best practices to minimize leakage in its distribution system, securing additional water supplies, upgrading wastewater and stormwater infrastructure to withstand future climate projections, and offering lower rates to customers who adopt measures that reduce stormwater runoff (e.g. green roofs or permeable pavement).

Infrastructure and Asset Management is also instituting specific actions for its area of responsibility. The forthcoming Urban Forest Strategy will allow for alterations to the species mix in parks to take into account climate change. Meanwhile, new municipal structures currently need to be LEED standard. In the near future, standards for its own buildings will be upgraded so they better adapt to climate change. Besides these preceding measures, this business unit has conducted vulnerability mapping of the social, built and natural environment around Halifax Harbour. These assessments assist the municipality in planning for climate related emergencies and making effective planning decisions. For example, new construction along vulnerable sections of Halifax Harbour now needs to be negotiated through development agreements on a case by case basis for large projects. In addition, developers are required to consider sea level rise and storm surges impacts and institute appropriate adaptation measures in project applications and construction.

Similar to the preceding department, Community Development is taking action to minimize potential damage to infrastructure. It published “A Developer’s Guide to Risk Assessment,” which identifies climate projections and impacts, explains how to evaluate risks, and provides a checklist for buildings and development in order to foster climate adaptation by the land development community. Land use policies and by-laws also exist to institute setbacks along the shoreline or inland waterways in order to limit risks from inland flooding or coastal inundation.

Halifax, Nova Scotia (CC - Hobolens)

A fourth department, Fire and Emergency Services, regularly educates residents on emergency preparedness. In order to enhance community and household preparedness for climate related emergencies, the Energy and Environment Office in consultation with the Emergency Management Organization developed a guide entitled the “Community Action Guide to Climate Change and Emergency Preparedness”. To provide additional assistance to high risk communities, these entities have jointly conducted some climate change planning workshops on portions of this guidebook and will continue to offer them in the future. During these sessions, participants map various types of vulnerabilities and are encouraged to develop a community action plan to help them until emergency personnel arrive. Fire and Emergency Services also has Joint Emergency Management Groups that act as a resource for rural, isolated and vulnerable communities during emergencies. They liaise with the Emergency Operations Centre, help community groups plan and respond quickly in emergencies, and assist vulnerable demographic groups. In recent years, the number and severity of forest fires has risen in the region. To address this particular type of emergency and the occasional challenges with reaching fires during extreme weather events, this business unit has been increasing its capacity and resources. For example, it now uses additional types of vehicles, new water sources and different access roads.

Beyond specific business unit actions, HRM is one of numerous organizations involved in the Atlantic Climate Adaptation Solutions Project. It has been active in several initiatives within this broader project, including wave run-up and seiche modelling for Halifax Harbour; the Halifax Harbour Sea Level Rise Project; impervious surface, stormwater, and sediment modelling; and water resource modelling, among others. Some of the modelling efforts have already influenced municipal policies and actions. For instance, wave run up and seiche modelling results are being incorporated into land use by-laws. Meanwhile, Northwest Arm seawalls are being upgraded to reflect one-hundred year climate predictions to provide more long-term protection to properties.

Sources: Interviews with municipal staff; the Climate Smart: Climate Change Risk Management Strategy for Halifax Regional Municipality; the Climate SMART Risk Management Strategy for HRM: February 2011 Status Update; and the Climate Smart website. For additional information on Halifax’s climate initiatives, please refer to the following link – www.halifax.ca/climate.

About Susan Chalmers: Susan is originally from Vancouver. She completed her BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria in 2008 and is pursuing her master’s degree at York. Her research interests relate to climate change policy-making and climate justice generally.

More more news click on the links below!

Spring is here and so is the CC-RAI newsletter. To learn more about CC-RAI’s ongoing work simply click on the image below. It has been a busy year and we look forward to an even busier few months to come. CC-RAI is always looking to work with researchers, students and practioners interested in the diverse array of issues associated with a changing climate.

If you are interested in learning more about our work with the Ontario Regional Climate Change Consortium (ORCCC) or efforts to build capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration around climate change research and action please contact Program and Communications Manager – Stewart Dutfield.

CC-RAI Newsletter May 2012

In addition to the information provided in our newsletter you can learn more about our various projects including our climate literacy project, regular blog series and other initiatives by talking a stroll through CC-RAI online.

Connecting for Collaboration Report

CC-RAI is proud to share our report on the acitvities of two climate change working groups, one focused on climate change literacy and the other on interdisciplinary collaboration and capacity building for research and action on climate change. CC-RAI would like to acknowledge the support of the office for Research and Innovation as well as the many faculty and students who participated as members of our climate change working groups.

Despite existing commitments, a broad array of faculty and students chose to take part in this pilot project. They have included faculty and students from the Faculty of Science and Engineering (Atmospheric Sciences and Chemistry), the Faculty of Environmental Studies, the Department of Geography, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Laboratory of Mathematical and Parallel Systems (LAMPS), the School of Information Technology, and the School of Administrative Studies. We would also like to thank members from Learning for Sustainable Futures (LSF) and Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) for taking part in this initiative.

The climate change literacy tumblr - compiled as part of the literacy project

One of the working groups focused on developing a draft climate change literacy toolkit which addresses a broad range of topics – from an overview of climate change and extreme weather to a discussion of climate change adaptation and the perception of climate change in the media. The current draft of the toolkit represents a working compilation of submissions by the working group. The next revision of the toolkit will focus on harmonizing the various voices of the authors and cohesively improving the overall quality and readability of the material presented. At a recent meeting of the working group the decision was also made to revise the current draft as a resource for teachers wishing to discuss climate change with their students. Subsequent versions for parents and students would be another option. Additional details on this discussion are provided in the workshop report section of the report. Moreover, the revised sections of the text will be incorporated into the online component of the project – a dedicated Tumblr blog entitled Collaborating for Climate Change Literacy.  

With respect to the interdiscplinary collaboration project, between December and mid-February,  an on-line survey was distributed to faculty and graduate students engaged in climate change research. Research Officers and Associate Deans of Research helped to publicize the questionnaire and encourage responses from their faculty. At the same time, CC-RAI contacted researchers from its existing database to complete the survey. Once the data were collected and analyzed, computer programs have been developed to identify connections among participants and summary reports were prepared pertaining to the project. A preliminary network of researchers with interests in climate change research was created to determine the connections and potential for collaboration between researchers. The next interation of the project will focus on bringing faculty and researchers together to work on joint climate change research initiatives in both the social and natural sciences.

If you would like to know more about these projects or take part in one of the working groups we would be glad to hear from you. The current phase of the project has led to a range of potential follow-up projects, CC-RAI will keep you posted. Once again we would like to thanks those individuals who took part in the project to date.

A network analysis of CC-RAI interdisciplinary survey

Interdisciplinary Collaboration Working Group: Marina Erechtchoukova (Co-chair, School of Information Technology, LAPS), Rachel Hirsch (Co-chair, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Post-Doctoral Fellow), Susan Chalmers (Faculty of Environmental Studies, CC-RAI Graduate Assistant), Jessica Notwell (Faculty of Environmental Studies, CC-RAI Graduate Assistant), Osama Askoura (International Work Study Student) 

Rick Bello (LAPS), Jennet Poffenroth (MES Candidate, FES), Steven Alsopp (Education), Shishir Handa (MSc Candidate Geography), Ellen Field (PhD Candidate) at the climate change literacy workshop

Climate Literacy Working Group: Rick Bello (LAPS – Geography), Shishir Handa (Co-chair, LAPS – Geography), Monica Vaswani (Co-chair, LAPS – Geography), Georges Monette (Math & Stats), Walter Whiteley (Math & Stats, Education), Hassan Qudrat-Ullah (LAPS – School of Administrative Studies), Masao Ashtine (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Kristina Delidjakova (LAPS – Geography), Bernhard Isopp (Science and Technology Studies), Matthew MacLean (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Jennet Poffenroth (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Aaron Saad (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Diego Alejandro Sotomayor (LAPS – Geography), Janine Baijnath (University of Waterloo), Amit Lahiri (Centennial College, MES Alumni), Christina Wong (University of Toronto).

Celebrating a national exchange of countrywide work to address climate change. Additional details and media to become available. But if you can’t wait check out a short video of Ontario Regional Climate Change Consortium (ORCCC) Chair Dr. Gordon McBean as he highlights climate change issues already impacting people across Canada and the world.

Dr. Gordon McBean at the National Water Adaptation to Climate Change Forum hosted by TRCA.

Courtesy of the Farmland Trust

Ontario is home to Canada’s best climatic zones for agricultural production. The combination of temperate climate and rich soils allows Ontario to produce the greatest variety of agricultural products, with the highest economic value, of any region in Canada. However the future of farming in Ontario is uncertain due to competing land use pressures, increasing climate variation and extreme weather events (and, associated damage costs) related to climate change.

Expected Climate Impacts on Agriculture in Ontario

Managing through uncertainty (of all kinds) is a common element of farming life.  Weather has always been a challenge and there are numerous valuable adaptive approaches already employed by farmers.  However, global and regional climate change scenarios point to a scope and scale of change that exceeds anything previous precedence.  Between 2010 and 2039, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects average warming of 1-3°C across much of North America and, beyond this period, annual warming is expected to increase. The resulting environmental changes will test the capacity of individual farmers to respond, and will likely push beyond the threshold of “normal” agricultural adaptation.

Today, the most immediate threat to agriculture is the loss of farmland and the economic viability of medium-small farm businesses. The Ontario Farmland Trust (‘the Trust’) is at the forefront of the farming crisis. The Trust works to protect and preserve farmland, enhance the viability of farming and to safeguard our food security, not just here in Ontario, but across Canada. At the recent Farmland Preservation Forum hosted by the Trust, I had a chance to hear a panel of agricultural experts discuss the key challenges that are threatening food and farming in Ontario. One of the first presentations helped to elucidate the urgency of the situation and the importance of farmland preservation to food-self-sufficiency, which is the ability to a specified area to provide for its own need. The study revealed that Ontario is currently a net exporter of food, but by 2036 it will have a food deficit. This means that if the projected population increase of 34.4% or 4.5 million people by 2036 is realized the province of Ontario will no longer be able to meet the nutritional requirements of its residents within the existing agriculture and land use model (McCallum, 2011).

Courtesy of the Farmland Trust

This sobering revelation is compounded by the ongoing struggle to manage growth while preserving and protecting farmland and water resources.  Conversely, I also learned about the untapped potential in Ontario, specifically in the Golden Horseshoe.  Golden Horse is a geographically distinct sub-region in southern Ontario that is one of the largest food and farming clusters in North America, consisting of one million acres of farmland producing over 200 agricultural crops. This agricultural-rich area is home to 6.5 million people and is considered to have the fastest growing populations in Canada, which has created significant challenges for farming and local communities. In response to these pressures, a collaboration of five regional governments and other stakeholders have recently developed the Golden Horseshoe Agriculture & Agri-food Strategy  and Food & Farming Action Plan. The action plan identifies several goals to building partnerships, to foster innovation and to link food, farming and health. While the plan promotes economic development and the importance of educating people to make healthy food choices, it doesn’t go as far as to join-up production with the nutritional requirements of consumers. In my opinion this is actually where the greatest untapped potential lays – sustainable, health promoting food systems.

This view requires a shift in thinking from a supply-focus to a consumer-focus food system. It requires a convergence of agriculture and health policy to release the economic potential of medium-small scale producers and processors, while re-connecting people to their food and the land, and providing the foundation for a integrate strategy to adapt to climate change. One concept that embodies this approach is regional optimal consumption planning. This concept links regional requirements to optimise nourishment and organises production, processing, and distribution to match those needs, and in this way, respects socio-cultural and ecosystem-based factors (Desjardins et al p.439, 2010). This approach may seem ‘radical’ to some, but we already know that diet-related health issues, such as diabetes and heart disease are on the rise and if we continue to flounder in terms of growth management. – Ontario will be food insecure by 2036, forcing us to become more dependent on the volatile global food market unless we act now.

Courtesy of the Farmland Trust

In summary, even though the implications of climate change are still being realized, adaptation strategies can work by supporting a vision for a sustainable, health promoting food system. Joined-up agriculture and health policy is needed to unlock the full potential of local medium-small scale producers and processors through integrated approaches, such as optimising regional consumption planning. Events such as the Farmland Preservation Forum are important to facilitate lively discussion and debate about food and farming related issues among local and provincial governments, farmers and neighbours. The Forum was able to highlight the many challenges facing farmland protection and preservation, while focusing our attention on the vulnerabilities in our food system and the uncertainty of our future food self-sufficiency.  However, Ontario has a rich agricultural heritage and farmers continue to manage through uncertainty. The Golden Horseshoe Action Plan maybe part of this needed response, but it will also take political will, leadership and public involvement to mobilise action to achieve food self-sufficiency, community resiliency and adaptability in relation to the impacts of climate change. We all have a role to play in creating a sustainable, healthy food future.

Jamai Schile, CC-RAI Graduate Assistant and Masters Candidate explores the connection between health, planning and climate adaptation

Jamai Schile is a graduate student within the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Planning Program where she is pursuing a degree in regional planning. With over 10 years experience in environmental management and agriculture, she is currently exploring planning concepts in rural/ regional sustainable food systems.

Desjardins E, MacRae R, Schumilas T. Meeting future population food needs with local production in Waterloo region: linking food availability and optimal nutritional requirements. Agric Human Values. 2010; 27(2): 129 – 140

Other sources of information on Agriculture and Climate Change:

People’s Food Policy Project

http://peoplesfoodpolicy.ca/policy/resetting-table-peoples-food-policy-canada

BC Agriculture & Food Climate Action Initiative

http://www.bcagclimateaction.ca/

Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/climatechange.htm

David Suzuki Foundation _ Food & Climate Change…What Can You Do?

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/food-and-our-planet/food-and-climate-change/

Susan Chalmers, Masters of Environmental Studies Candidate at York, continues her installments on climate change adaptation in Canadian coastal communities by discussing the results of her research. The current blog highlights the adaptation work underway in Saanich, British Columbia.

Saanich, B.C. - Climate Change Adaptation Plan

Saanich, British Columbia:

In October, 2011, Saanich released its Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan. A broad range of people, including Saanich’s internal climate adaptation team, line staff, key stakeholders and the general public, played important roles in developing the plan. A member of the Planning Department and external consultants led the project, while the Management Group, comprised of directors and key managers from municipal departments, supervised and the plan’s development and provided support to the project leaders. One member of the Management Group, Saanich’s Chief Administrative Officer, truly believed in the importance of adaptation and championed the project from the beginning. To identify, validate and prioritize key impacts and adaptation actions, the project leaders consulted with line staff, influential stakeholders from the affected sectors, the general public, Saanich’s seven Advisory Committees, and senior personnel in the other twelve municipalities within the Capital Regional District, as one plan will eventually need to be developed for the entire region.

In order to facilitate the adaptation planning process and the development of its Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan, the municipality and its consultants created a customized framework that was modified from the ICLEI and Climate Impact Group’s guidebook, “Preparing for Climate Change”. The framework consisted of seven steps: 1) define at risk sectors; 2) assess impacts; 3) evaluate risks; 4) identify adaptive capacity; 5) conduct an urgency assessment; 6) validate urgency; and 7) rank actions.

The Adaptation Plan identifies eight-seven actions to address a wide variety of impacts in ten sectors, including agriculture, ecosystems, infrastructure, transportation, health, and emergency response. For instance, to increase local food production, the municipality intends to modify certain policies and bylaws to enable urban farming and support more community gardens. To deal with building and infrastructure threats, Saanich will consider climate change in the codes of its own buildings and engineering plans, retrofit critical infrastructure and incorporate stormwater management in new and retrofitted roads. Furthermore, the city plans to institute an erosion setback in high hazard areas, create variances and density bonuses to protect public amenities that buffer against coastal threats, and advise developers on mainstreaming adaptation into coastal properties. These actions will be incorporated into departmental plans and gradually implemented over the next ten years. Every three years, Saanich will formally review and update the plan considering actual impacts and instituted measures, although it will also track its progress on an annual basis.

Saanich, British Columbia

The newly released plan builds on adaptation initiatives already underway. The Urban Forest Strategy, Invasive Species Management Strategy and Natural State Covenant increase the tree canopy to provide shade during high temperatures, eradicate and limit the spread of non-native species, and protect natural ecosystems in their current state. To minimize flood risks to buildings, the municipality limits development in high flood prone zones and the construction of buildings below the floodplain. The municipality has also allocated funds to upgrade aging infrastructure, such as stormwater and water distribution systems, which is beginning to occur. Finally, the Emergency Response and Recovery Plan and several hazard specific action plans provide a foundation for responding to climate related hazards like flooding.

Sources: Personal interviews from municipal staff; Saanich’s Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan; and Adapting to Climate Change in Saanich: A Discussion Paper by D. Hegg. For further information on this community’s adaptation efforts, please visit the following website.

About Susan Chalmers: Susan is originally from Vancouver. She completed her BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria in 2008 and is pursuing her master’s degree at York. Her research interests relate to climate change policy-making and climate justice generally.

The Blue Green Economy (UBC Press)

Canada has been in the news quite frequently of late in terms of environment policy as it relates to climate change and the oil industry across the country, in particular the Alberta Tar Sands. Understanding the complexities of federal environmental policy not to mention provincial policy can challenging for policy makers themselves, not least those organizations and communities who will be impacted by that policy. At a fundamental level policy level is an iterative process informed by the changing winds of political priorities and ideology.

In Blue-Green Province: The Environment and Political Economy of Ontario, Prof. Mark Winfield addresses the complex and often contradictory arena of environmental policy in Canada at the provincial and national level.

In his new book, Winfield investigates the link between environmental policy and the influence of successive Ontario government’s social, political and economic priorities. Through an in-depth analysis of the differences between the reign of Conservative to Liberal parties and the most recent federal and provincial elections of 2011, Winfield explores the implications of environment and energy policy in Ontario and across Canada.

CC-RAI recently had the opportunity to catch up with Prof. Winfield and get his thoughts on some of the implications of this research and the response to the work so far.

Prof. Mark Winfield

Since the 2011 election the primary political focus has been on the province’s economic challenges rather than the environment. Will Ontario be able to find a way to advance environmental sustainability and the economic prosperity?

I believe the potential to do that is there, but whether the province is going to carry through in those directions is an increasingly open question. The 2009 Green Energy Act, however flawed, represented the most serious effort ever seen by a provincial government in Ontario to link environmental and economic policy in a positive way. The legislation was intended to provide the foundation for a renewable energy technology manufacturing and services sector in the province.

Unfortunately since then the signals have become less and less promising. There has been a lot of wavering on the commitment to green energy – the pre-election ban on offshore wind projects, continued commitment to an electricity system that is 50% nuclear even in a post-Fukushima world and the uncertainty about the outcome of the FIT review. Moreover the government’s overall economic agenda has been incorporating some decidedly unsustainable dimensions – the emphasis on mining development in the boreal region of the far north, industry-friendly ”reforms” of the environmental approvals and forest tenure systems and looming cuts to the budgets of the Ministries of Environment and Natural Resources, leapfrogging sprawl-facilitative amendments to the Places to Grow Plan and the apparent withering of the province’s efforts on climate change mitigation – all come to mind. The positive agenda from an environmental perspective has by comparison been decidedly thin.

The Drummond report, with its emphasis on the province’s budgetary situation and the need to dramatically reduce provincial expenditures, has offered very little in terms of a positive agenda or vision for the future (although it does pointedly ask the provincial government to provide one). The province itself, although enthusiastically embracing the agenda what Mr. Drummond has provided it, seems as lost as ever on the actual way forward.

Is Ontario’s future green? Can we expect environmental policy to continue to play a prominent role in Ontario politics?

There is no doubt that environmental issues will continue to play a prominent role in Ontario politics. One of the most important features of the most recent wave of public concern for the environment in Canada and Ontario, which ran from the early part of the 2000s to the economic crisis of 2008, was the shift in the demographic base of concern for environmental issues. A decade ago those identifying the environment as their leading public policy concern to pollsters were typically age 55+, high income, high education and lived in urban areas. Current polling data indicates there has now been a generational shift in the base of concern to the under 35 cohort and that the concern is more evenly shared regionally and over different income and education levels. That suggests to me that the environment isn’t going to go away as a major issue anytime soon.

The collapse of the Green Party’s vote in the 2011 election was the result of a combination of factors that I describe in my book, particularly concerns over the prospects of a Progressive Conservative win in a very close election. However, if the other three major parties continue to fail to offer a positive vision for the province’s environmental and economic future, one can certainly envision support moving back in the direction of the Greens, particularly among younger voters.

 Why were you motivated to right the book at this time?

Although the book was a long time in development - parts of it in fact date back to my doctoral thesis completed more than 20 years ago – the timing of its release has I think worked out well. The province is searching for a way forward in the face of some very serious environmental and economic challenges. My hope is that this refection on the evolution of the relationship between the province’s changing society, environment, economy and politics will help to inform those conversations in a constructive and useful way.

Why do you think scholarship in this area is so lacking despite the increasing importance environmental policy provincially? Nationally?

The Canadian environmental policy literature on events at the provincial level remains very thin, despite the fact that over the past 20 years the provinces have become increasingly dominant players in energy, environment and natural resources policy. They have also become the key focal points for environmental policy innovation – witness British Columbia’s carbon tax, Quebec’s climate change strategy, and Ontario’s coal-fired electricity phase-out and Green Energy Act.

The situation with respect to scholarly work is beginning to change, and I think there is increasing recognition that, at least for now, the real centre of environmental policy action in North America has shifted to the sub-national level. At the same time, it is the part of the reflective and analytical nature of scholarship that it will inevitably lag somewhat behind where the conversations are at in the real time world of politics and public policy.

What has the response been to the book so far? Have you heard much from the Ontario government?

No congratulatory notes from the premier so far, but the general response has been very positive – the book seems to have filled a gap in the existing literature on environmental policy in Canada and on Ontario government and politics.

Late last year a Victoria publisher frustrated with Canada’s withdrawl from Kyoto sent a short climate change primer to every Canadian MP If you could place your book on the MP reading list along with a few others what would they be?

Tim Leduc’s Climate, Culture, Change: Inuit and Western Dialogues with a Warming North. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press 2012 would be an obvious choice.

Professor Mark Winfield (Faculty of Environmental Studies)  is co-chair of the FES Sustainable Energy Initiative (SEI) and a Fellow of York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS).

CC-RAI is pleased to highlight a national forum convened by our partners to mobilize knowledge generated from the work of the Regional Adaptation Collaboratives (RACs) in the area of change change and water resources. Project partners include:  Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research (CFCAS), the Canadian Water Resources Association (CWRA) and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) with funded provided by Natural Resources Canada.

It is already recognized that climate change is affecting water resources across Canada, with each region and community facing unique opportunities and challenges. Together, we can share knowledge to advance the state of practice for adaptation nationally. The purpose of this event is to share lessons and opportunities, and identify needs and potential challenges in advancing the adaptation of water resource management nationally. Participants will contribute directly to a national compendium for practitioners, assist in developing a briefing document, and exchange best practices and lessons.

FORUM OBJECTIVES

• Provide learning opportunities for new ways of thinking about water adaptation.
• Reflect upon the current state of practice and share knowledge on water adaptation projects.
• Showcase a diverse range of projects led by Forum participants.
• Stimulate discussion to identify: Water adaptation knowledge needs of practitioners (e.g., engineers, scientists, policy analysts, project coordinators, planners, and educators);
• Opportunities for dissemination of knowledge and collaboration towards the mainstreaming of adaptation.
• Contribute to: A national compendium of knowledge on water resource adaptation to be used by practitioners; A briefing document on the state of and opportunities for advancing, water adaptation across Canada.

WATER: 1st Annual Sustainability FilmFest

CC-RAI is a proud partner of Planet in Focus and York University’s Focus on Sustainability Film Festival – this years premiere event will focus on water and the complex environmental issues involved both nationally and international. This engaging, entertaining and thought provoking showcase of award winning films will be enhanced by conversations and discussions with filmmakers, activists and academics alike.

The Sustainability Film Festival 2012 will be hosted in the York University Senate Chambers (North Ross 940) from 10am to 5pm on Monday, March 19th, 2012. Only $2 gets you an all access, all day pass to a diverse array of films that aim raise the consciousness of water issues in Canada and across the planet.

Water on the Table

White Water, Black Gold

“White Water, Black Gold” trailer from David Lavallee on Vimeo.

Carbon for Water

Trailer for Carbon For Water from Vestergaard Frandsen on Vimeo.

The Clean Bin Project

The Clean Bin Project – Trailer from Grant Baldwin Videography on Vimeo.

This festival is brought to you by The Osgoode Environmental Law Society (ELS), The Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS), and The Climate Consortium for Research Action Integration (CC-RAI).
Many thanks to our supporters: The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC), and The Centre for Human Rights.

For additional details and future updates visit: www.irisyorku.ca/film-fest

Das Haus 2012

CC-RAI is pleased to highlight DAS HAUS - an international exhibition that connects industry professionals with the latest market-ready renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions from Germany. Central to the exhibit is a pavilion, which demonstrates real world technologies and building practices for meeting ultra-low energy building standards. The DAS HAUS program offers various expert symposiums and networking events allowing participants to share their perspectives on green building design. Admission to the pavilion and participation in the events is free of charge.

DAS HAUS will travel both the Canada and the United States with Canadian city stops in Vancouver, March 12 – 21, 2012; Toronto April 13 – 22, 2012 and Montreal,  May 10 – 20, 2012.

DAS HAUS pavilion - Tempe, USA January 2012

For further information please visit www.dashaustour.com or contact Elisa Seidt: dashaus@germanchamber.ca.