LCR: Transformative Climate Change Planning for Canada
This paper demonstrates the potential value of integrating and achieving co-benefits between adaptation and mitigation planning, explores examples of low carbon resilience (LCR) strategies, and considers options for their implementation in Canada.
LCR refers to climate change strategies that integrate and achieve co-benefits between greenhouse gas emissions reduction (mitigation) and planning designed to reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts (adaptation). To date, most strategies focus on one or the other of these two goals.
As we plan to limit climate change and adapt to impacts we can no longer avoid, synergies between climate change adaptation and mitigation are becoming increasingly relevant at a variety of scales. Moving towards a low carbon future, it is essential that climate change resilience and risk planning be incorporated in the design and placement of renewable energy infrastructure, and that we place ecosystem health at the centre of our priorities. Finally, the current and projected economic costs of inaction on climate change and the corresponding threats to infrastructure will directly impact Canadian communities, further highlighting the need for LCR strategies.
