Local government politicians speak out on costs of climate change
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 23:54:48 +0000
One day before thousands of people are expected to converge on Vancouver City Hall to strike for climate action, local government politicians were talking about ways to deal with the mounting costs of climate change.
Last year, Grand Forks was the site of a dramatic flood that saw thousands evacuated from their homes. That event was followed by evacuations alerts due to a wildfire that was burning north of town, and then a drought.
“All of these things seem to be becoming more and more common for us,” Kootenay Boundary Regional District chair Roly Russell said outside of the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Vancouver on Thursday.
Russell said the costs of these events are, in one way or another, borne by the taxpayer. The flooding alone had a pricetag in the tens of millions.
“It seems only fair that we would do a better job of placing the accountability for those kinds of costs off of taxpayers’ shoulders, and onto those organizations that are responsible for changing the system to the point where we can’t predict these kinds of events. And we’re seeing more and more of these highly variable weather patterns,” Russell said.
Climate change is a hot topic at this year’s UBCM conference, and a number of resolutions deal with the topic — including two that involve cost recovery.
One, proposed by Port Moody, calls on the province to enact legislation that holds fossil-fuel companies financially liable for harm caused by their contribution to climate change.
A Victoria resolution asked the UBCM to look at initiating a class-action lawsuit on behalf of member local governments to recover costs arising from climate change from major fossil-fuel companies and urges the province to consider legislation to support local governments in their efforts to get money from corporations.
West Coast Environment Law and the Georgia Strait Alliance have been advocating for climate costs to be paid not only by fossil-fuel companies, but those who have benefited from the fossil-fuel industry.
“We think that’s an important conversation that more and more communities are going to have to have as those costs get higher and higher,” said Andrew Gage, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law.
Clean-up costs aren’t the only costs that could be covered by corporations.
In Richmond, Coun. Kelly Greene said the city will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to build up its dikes to prepare for sea-level rise associated with climate change. She would like to see municipalities be able to raise money for such projects from companies that are contributing to climate change.
“It’s not fair for us to be on the hook for billions, and it’s not fair for residents to be paying for a disproportionate amount toward that,” she said.
Gage said adaptation costs are easy to quantify, and climate attribution scientists can now determine how much climate change has to do with individual disasters. Work done by scientists at the University of Victoria and federal government showed that human-induced climate change had a major role in the 2017 wildfires.
Summerland Mayor Toni Boot said some costs can’t yet be quantified.
Smoke from wildfires the last two years caused health problems in her community for children, the elderly and those who are vulnerable because of pre-existing conditions, and anxiety for residents who were advised to stay indoors to avoid breathing in the smoke.
“Even though you couldn’t see the flames, you could smell the smoke,” she said.
Delegates are expected to consider the resolutions on Friday.