Thank you.
The Ecology Action Centre is an environmental-based charity here in Mi’kma’ki, the unceded and ancestral lands of the Mi'kmaq people, and grounded in over five decades of deep environmental change efforts. We work to equip human and ecological communities for resilience and to build a world where ecosystems and communities are restored and not just sustained.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to this standing committee. I understand you have undertaken a study to look at adapting infrastructure to face climate change, and I'm here to give you my perspective from Nova Scotia and to speak to you about my two main recommendations. They are to adequately encourage and address nature-based solutions in the national adaptation strategy and the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, and to increase adaptation spending across the board.
I want to begin by highlighting the simplest and most effective form of adapting development and infrastructure to our changing climate, which is to not build in known risk-prone areas in the first place.
Provincial development regulations, like the recently delayed—much to my dismay—Coastal Protection Act here in Nova Scotia are an excellent first step. It's the first legislation of its kind in the country, but it's most effective if implemented immediately, especially when we in Nova Scotia and the Maritimes are facing the highest relative sea level rise rates in the country. It's well over a metre by 2100.
The recent hurricane Fiona, which should not be out of memory for anyone, was estimated to be the most expensive storm in Atlantic Canadian history, costing over $800 million in covered insured damages alone. It was a stark signal to all Atlantic provinces that we are already living in a changing climate, and we are well past the point of stalling adaptation measures and short-term planning.
Every dollar spent invested in adaptation now will save at least $15 in future costs. Unfortunately, we're currently spending some of that money to help rebuild communities and infrastructures in areas that were just levelled by floods, erosions and storms, instead of recognizing the need to change our relationship to the land and adapt, again, to our changing climate as we speak.
I'm really pleased to see the language for adaptation and funding for adaptation infrastructure developing in Canada over the last few years through the national adaptation strategy and the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund. However, I want to be very clear that the lack of inclusion and consideration of nature-based solutions is very disappointing.
Nature-based solutions can range from land conservation and urban tree planting to wetland and ecosystem restoration, and a multitude of options under the spectrum of living shorelines. All focus on implementing the existing defence capabilities and services provided by ecosystems and native species. Adaptation infrastructure that includes the planting of those native species, and the protection and restoration of local ecosystems and biodiversity, has been proven to be more cost-effective, both on the initial installment and on development costs, and much more effective in the long-term maintenance costs.
In short, adaptation—yes, absolutely. I love to hear it across the board, but I want to make sure that we're modernizing our adaptation measures beyond just throwing rocks into the ocean and crossing our fingers.
Please recommend updates to both the national adaptation strategy and the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, requiring and incentivizing the implementation of nature-based solutions in adaptation infrastructure. Also, at the end of the day, adequately fund adaptation measures.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.