A good piece by Don Forgeron, President and CEO of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, in the Toronto Star: ...A federally appointed advisory panel, the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy, reported that climate change carries with it a high economic cost. It warns that Canada should move to reduce the inevitable increased costs of climate change by investing in adaptive measures....The costs of severe weather go far beyond dollars and cents. This is not just about insurance. It is about Canadians, as individuals and communities, and our ability to cope with tragedy brought on by severe weather. When lives are lost, people are injured or displaced, and towns are devastated, the personal and social costs are incalculable.
But insurers are also aware that another factor is at play. We know that Canadians are suffering increasing water damage because our water and sewage infrastructure is in disrepair. Municipalities are responsible for undertaking their own infrastructure improvement projects, but they count on funding from provincial and federal governments, so we need all levels of government to commit more resources to these projects.
...IBC applauds any government or organization that takes the important step of investing in plans to adapt to severe weather. Now we must ensure that we follow through and put in place real preventative measures to protect our homes, livelihoods and communities.
A submerged bench by the rising Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in May 2011. Shot by Shahnoor Habib Munmun, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
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