Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the subject of Arctic security. My perspective is that of a former military practitioner and an academic with three decades of study and publishing on defence resource management issues. To give you context of my background, I retired from the military in 2017 as the RCAF comptroller and business planner.
My focus today is on climate change and the impact on defence infrastructure in northern Canada. The 2021 NATO climate change and security plan defined climate change as a “threat multiplier” to NATO members. In the time allocated, I am going to initially discuss the effect of increasing temperatures in the north and the impact on defence, and then conclude by outlining the climate change risks to defence infrastructure.
The availability of infrastructure in the north is the first and most important factor that is necessary to enable the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence to operate effectively in the north throughout the year. In recent years, climate change has been a lived reality for citizens living in northern Canada.
The recently released Canadian Climate Institute report, entitled “Facing the Costs of Climate Change for Northern Infrastructure”, stated up front that “Northern Canada faces a double threat of already inadequate infrastructure in a rapidly warming climate.” Canada has a long-standing infrastructure deficit, and this is particularly acute in the north. Physical infrastructure is defined as roads, bridges, sidewalks, potable water systems, airfields, ports and storm and waste-water systems. Governments from the municipal to the federal level have been slow to adapt their infrastructure to climate change.
The United States, in a recent report, has defined that “Climate change is increasing the demand and scope for military operations at home and [abroad].” In Canada, in the 2020-23 “Defence Energy and Environment Strategy”, DND is “the largest user of energy and the single largest emitter of [greenhouse gases] in the federal government”.
As global temperatures continue to climb, broad shifts in weather systems are occurring, making events like droughts, hurricanes and floods more intense and unpredictable. Extreme weather events that may have hit just once in our parents’ lifetimes are becoming more common.
The cost of infrastructure in northern remote locations is significantly higher than in southern Canada.
There are four distinct risks to DND on climate change. The first is budget risk, repairing facilities damaged by climate change events and the need to update both buildings and infrastructure to adapt to climate change. Two is operational risk, reducing training activities due to meteorological or other climate-related risks. Three is the increased frequency of aid to civil power, that being provincial governments, increased deployments of military personnel across the country to support provincial governments and communities that have been impacted by floods, forest fires and hurricanes. We've seen a lot of that recently. The final one is outdated regulations. All levels of government in the north need to update infrastructure policies, regulations, standards and building codes to explicitly account for the complex and severe impacts of northern climate change.
Thank you.