Paying the Price – Where do we go from here?
Paying the Price highlights areas where additional research and analysis on climate change impacts and adaptation are needed for Canada. Having clearly identified economic risks associated with a changing climate, we need to turn our attention to exploring the economic opportunities of adaptation — to both cope and prosper through inevitable degrees of climate change. A key player is Canada’s private sector. Economic analysis of the kind conducted here, matched with business understanding of what’s at stake and how to manage risks and opportunities, can move Canada forward. Knowing what is needed and indeed justifiable from government to support and incent private-sector actions must also be part of this assessment. Public action — by governments funded through taxpayers — to increase resilience to climate change can actually generate private benefits in response. For example, investments in public infrastructure built to withstand future climates help business productivity. But effective adaptation requires concerted local and private-sector actions focused on the situations close at hand.
Our fifth report in the Climate Prosperity series will examine the ways Canadian businesses can and should address the impacts of climate change and the roles of governments in supporting this.
© 2013