Protecting Our Water Resources

Climate change is a global issue affecting the entire planet. Much of the policy response on climate change is being driven by sound science, especially through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To date, the focus of the policy response has been on measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Less attention has been focused on understanding the impacts of climate change and the development of appropriate actions to help Canadians adapt.

Mitigation

When climate change is discussed by politicians or addressed in the media, the focus is primarily on mitigation. Mitigation involves human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the storage of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), no single option will reduce emissions enough to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, and a range of options is needed. Examples of mitigation efforts are:

Energy production and consumption

Since the production and consumption of fossil fuels is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, taking effective action to address climate change involves transforming the way we produce and use energy. Strategies to reduce emissions from the energy sector include

• reducing the output of greenhouse gases for each unit of energy produced;
• reducing energy consumption, for example, by increasing energy efficiency in key consuming areas: industry, buildings, equipment, and transportation; and
• increasing the use of energy derived from non-fossil fuel sources, such as wind energy and ethanol.

Other mitigation options include reducing non-carbon dioxide emissions, for example, by recovering methane emissions from waste management and enhancing carbon storage in sinks. Carbon sinks are natural or man-made processes that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Carbon storage options include

• protecting and enhancing storage in natural systems, such as forests and soils (which are natural carbon sinks); and
• capturing carbon dioxide produced during energy production and consumption for long-term storage underground or in oceans.

Mitigation through reducing greenhouse gas emissions will slow the rate of global warming somewhat. However, mitigation measures alone cannot prevent further global warming that will occur as a result of the gases that already are present in the atmosphere. As a result, adaptation to climate change is essential.

Adaptive Management

Adaptation involves responding to a changing climate by altering the way we do business, manage resources and live our lives so that we’re less likely to be harmed or otherwise affected by the changes. Water managers have always had to adapt to a variable climate, and to too much or too little water. Thus, in the water sector, numerous adaptations to climate change exist that also happen to be best water management practices. To illustrate, water conservation, which is now seen as an essential part of water supply planning, may also be an effective adaptation to future water shortages resulting from climate change.

Adapted from Pollution Probe's Climate Change and Human Health Primer and the Commissioner of the Environment: Climate Change - An Overview