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Final Report
November 2010
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The Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is one of seven programs that comprise the Adaptation Theme of the Clean Air Agenda (CAA). The CAA is a horizontal federal strategy that represents a part of the federal government's broader efforts to address the challenges of climate change and air pollution, with a view to building a clean and healthy environment for Canadians. To support federal efforts in delivering the CAA, a total of $1.7 billion was allocated between 2007‑2008 and 2010‑2011. The CAA involves more than 40 programs, delivered by nine federal departments and agencies, which are organized into the following eight themes: [2]
As noted previously, the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is part of the Adaptation Theme. Unlike other themes of the CAA which focus on initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (known as mitigation measures), initiatives under the Adaptation Theme are designed to assist Canadians to alter their behaviour in ways that reduce the negative impacts of climate change. According to the fourth assessment report (2007) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the additive effects of both mitigation and adaptation can significantly reduce the risks of climate change impacts. Taken alone, neither adaptation nor mitigation can prevent significant climate change impacts; "[m]itigation is necessary to reduce the rate and magnitude of climate change, while adaptation is essential to reduce the damages from climate change that cannot be avoided."[3] While mitigation activities are carried out in programs within other themes of the CAA, the Adaptation Theme specifically supports adaptive activities in response to climate change impacts.
The CAA Adaptation Theme groups together seven programs[4] that are designed to assist Canadians in developing and using knowledge, information, tools and collaborative arrangements in order to take appropriate actions to reduce their risks from the impacts of climate change. All programs within the Adaptation Theme are intended to contribute to the achievement of two long-term outcomes: 1) improving Canada's capacity to reduce health risks arising from air pollution and a changing climate; and, 2) improving Canada's capacity to adapt and respond to a changing climate and air pollution. Resources were also targeted to address three urgent risks related to:
As part of the CAA Adaptation Theme, the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program addresses the risk related to Canada's infrastructure by providing foundational scientific research on climate change impacts and by working with national commissions and associations involved in setting building standards that take into consideration climate change impacts in their infrastructure design.
Evaluations of each of the seven programs within the Adaptation Theme were conducted in 2009‑2010, and results from these program-level evaluations will be rolled up to the Adaptation Theme level in mid-2010. Results from the thematic evaluation will then be aggregated together with those from the other thematic evaluations within the CAA in the fall of 2010.
The Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is a science-based program within Environment Canada that is intended to contribute towards improved information on climate change and its impacts. With increasing evidence indicating that the climate is changing and will continue to change in the foreseeable future,[5] information and predictive tools developed through the Program are intended to contribute to decision making within Canada in order to be able to reduce and respond to potential risks associated with climate change and facilitate increased adaptive behaviour.
The Program's activities focus on three key components:
Climate models are computer-generated simulations that allow scientists to estimate climate conditions globally and regionally as well as simulating climate change. Using information generated from climate models, climate change scenarios define a range of possible future climate conditions to assess climate change impacts like weather hazards and climate extremes. In order to facilitate adaptive behaviour, tools and information related to climate extremes are developed by the Program to assist stakeholders to develop and implement proactive and preventative measures in disaster management planning and to update Canada's infrastructure codes and standards that take into account climate change impacts.
The first program activity, climate modelling, is conducted by scientists at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma). The other two program activities, climate change scenarios and development of information on hazards and climate extremes, are part of the research on climate change impacts and adaptation and are carried out by scientists in the Adaptation and Impacts Research Section (AIRS). Both CCCma and AIRS are aligned under the Climate Research Division (CRD) in the Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate (ASTD) of the Science and Technology Branch at Environment Canada. Because the specialized science involved in climate modelling is different from the specialized science involved in climate change impacts and adaptation research, there is little ongoing interaction or shared activities between CCCma and AIRS.[6] There are, however, more opportunities for connections within AIRS between scientists examining climate change scenarios and those studying weather hazards and climate extremes. (Refer to Section 2.3.1 on Program Organizational Structure for fuller discussion.)
Each of the three program activities is presented in more detail in the following sections.
The first set of activities of the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program involves the enhancement and application of Canada's global and regional climate models by scientists at CCCma.
Program activities focus on:
The global climate system involves large-scale, dynamic, physical interactions among the Earth's atmosphere, biosphere, oceans, land surfaces and ice cover that respond to varying levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols. In order to examine the Earth's climate and the effect of these pollutants, scientists have developed climate models, which are complex mathematical representations of the Earth's climate which can capture a comprehensive view of future climate change. These climate models simulate climate variations over a three-dimensional spatial area and over a specific time period, factoring in varying levels of air pollutants to allow scientists to simulate historical climate change. They can provide projections of global climate[7] or regional climate. Regional climate models (RCMs) cover only a limited area but have higher resolution than the global model, thus providing a means of "zooming in" on a particular part of the world to provide more detailed data for a smaller area. With advances in computer technology and improved understanding of the earth's climate system, increasingly sophisticated climate models have been developed over the years that permit studies of more complex climate questions.
As part of the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program, CCCma's research activities focus on developing, analyzing, testing and operating more advanced versions[8] of the Canadian global model [9] to provide more robust simulations that better represent future climate conditions. CCCma is also involved in the development of a new regional climate model that produces climate change information at a finer spatial scale.[10] Output from these climate models is distributed through the CCCma website for use by the scientific community. These data are intended to help inform decision makers across all levels of government and in industry, and ultimately the Canadian public, about future climate change and its uncertainties.
The second set of activities of the Improved Climate Change program involves the development of the Canadian Climate Change Scenarios Network (CCCSN) and the development of climate change scenarios for climate, weather extremes and hazards. Originally launched in 2005, the objectives of CCCSN are:
Climate change scenarios, derived from global climate models, define a range of possible climate conditions extending about 100 years into the future and allow scientists to examine the impacts of climate change. When developing climate change scenarios, scientists combine and compare the information from multiple global models developed internationally, including the Canadian global climate model. Since these climate change scenarios play an important role in assessing future hazards, they are used by research and decision-making communities in adaptation and climate change impacts studies to inform planning and decision making to respond to climate change risks.
At AIRS, the CCCSN functions on two levels: as a social network of working teams of climate change scenarios researchers; and as a physical network of locations in each region in Canada, as well as the Arctic. The latter, called "nodes," each house computer servers to carry out scenario research. All of these nodes have been set up with supercomputing capacity, but the Arctic node has only recently begun to operate and the Atlantic and Pacific nodes are not yet running. Housed in major universities and colleges within each region,[11] the CCCSN facilitates the sharing of regionally relevant research on adaptation and climate change impacts developed at each node. Research in the regional nodes is carried out by Environment Canada employees and university partner scientists, and is coordinated by the CCCSN manager to minimize duplication and maximize the usefulness of the research produced. The information produced by the scenario network is made accessible to the public through hands-on training workshops and through the CCCSN website.
The third set of activities of the Improved Climate Change program involves developing specialized information on climate extremes and related hazards. In the coming years, the frequency and intensity of climate-related hazards and severe weather events are expected to increase substantially as a result of climate change.[12] Tools and information related to climate extremes, therefore, are required to help the implementation of proactive and preventative measures in local disaster management planning and in updating Canada's infrastructure codes and standards.
Program activities include:
The program activities for developing information on hazards and extremes include consultations with multiple stakeholders, usually via committees that represent industry, academia, provinces, territories, municipalities, professional engineering organizations and other decision makers. These consultations include discussions on procedures to incorporate climate change information into existing codes, standards, guidelines and practices, as well as participation in national committees and commissions that are involved in making adjustments to the design of Canada's infrastructure. By including this climate extremes and impacts information into the decision-making process, the goal is to make Canada's infrastructure more resilient and better adapted to more frequent extreme weather and climatic events.
Hazards information is disseminated to end users through the Canadian Atmospheric Hazards Network website, which provides hazards information related to all regions of Canada that focuses specifically on climate change and climate extremes. The Hazards Network is aimed at providing tools and information to support disaster risk planning and emergency preparedness within municipal and provincial governments. Collaboration and consultations are undertaken with provincial and municipal emergency management representatives to facilitate this process.
The Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program involves engagement with a number of stakeholder groups and partners:
Because the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is one of the seven programs under the Adaptation Theme of the CAA, its governance and accountabilities, insofar as they relate to the CAA, are tied to existing structures under the CAA architecture. The following sections describe the Program's organizational structure within Environment Canada and its governance as part of the CAA.
The Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is housed within the Climate Research Division (CRD) in the Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate (ASTD) of Environment Canada's Science and Technology Branch. Program activities are organized separately within two sections of CRD according to area of specialization: the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma) carries out climate modelling activities and the Adaptation and Impacts Research Section (AIRS) conducts research on climate change scenarios and on hazards and extremes. Because CCCma scientists and AIRS scientists are involved in different streams of research and because most CCCma scientists and AIRS scientists are not physically located together,[13] there is little ongoing interaction across the two sections.
At the outset of this evaluation, AIRS was a division (called the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division [AIRD]) and became subsumed as a section under CRD in November 2009. As a result of this change, financial information is now reported together for CCCma and AIRS under CRD and the reporting structures for the climate change scenarios and the climate extremes and hazards activities shifted. While CCCma and AIRS activities were aligned in different sub-activities in Environment Canada's departmental structure prior to this change, they will be aligned together under the new 2010‑2011 Program Activity Architecture (PAA) that is used for departmental planning and reporting purposes. These organizational changes will have an effect on the roles and responsibilities within AIRS and CRD but the full impact was not clear at the time of the present evaluation.
The Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program reports through Environment Canada's governance structures and is also accountable to existing governance structures at the Adaptation Theme and horizontal CAA levels. The CAA is a horizontal initiative that has implemented the CAA Horizontal Management Accountability and Reporting Framework (HMARF) to facilitate coordination across CAA themes. The accountability structure for the HMARF is composed of senior-level interdepartmental committees[14] that are responsible for providing strategic direction, coordination, and managerial oversight of the CAA.
A Director General Management Committee (DGMC) for each of the eight themes under the CAA is intended to provide guidance at the thematic level. Although the Chair of the DGMC is typically a Director General (DG) within the lead department, the DGMC chair for the Adaptation Theme rotates every two years among the DGs responsible for the programs under this theme.[15] DGMC meetings are called quarterly and the DG of the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program (or his or her representative) attends this meeting to contribute to discussion of issues at the theme level and to provide updates on program activities as required.
Funding for the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is unlike the other programs under the Adaptation Theme in that it provides incremental funding for new work among existing research activities that include climate modelling, climate change scenarios development and specialized information on extremes and hazards. As presented in Table 1, a total of $15M of CAA funding and 34 FTEs were allocated across these three components within the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program over a three-year period starting in 2008‑2009. Salary dollars account for approximately 50‑60% of total funds for each program component and all FTEs funded through this theme for the extremes and hazards component are new positions (except for core support and services). This Adaptation funding was intended to account for approximately 30%, of both O&M and salary dollars, of the total funding for CRD each year for 2008‑2009 and 2009‑2010.[16]
| Climate Modelling | Climate Change Scenarios | Extremes and Hazards | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FTEsa | 16.5 (incl. 4 new) |
6.5 (incl. 3 new) |
11 (incl. 10 new) |
34 | |
a No Grants and Contributions are associated with this program. b Includes Core Support Service (0.5 to 1.5 FTE per year) |
|||||
| 2007‑2008 | Salaries ($M) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| O&M ($M) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total ($M) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2008‑2009 | Salaries ($M) | 1.348 | 0.537 | 0.910 | 2.736 |
| O&M ($M) | 0.923 | 0.262 | 1.229 | 2.415 | |
| Total ($M) | 2.272 | 0.799 | 2.139 | 5.211 | |
| 2009‑2010 | Salaries ($M) | 1.491 | 0.397 | 0.985 | 2.873 |
| O&M ($M) | 1.034 | 0.185 | 0.808 | 2.027 | |
| Total ($M) | 2.526 | 0.582 | 1.792 | 4.900 | |
| 2010‑2011 | Salaries ($M) | 1.490 | 0.358 | 0.953 | 2.801 |
| O&M ($M) | 1.016 | 0.177 | 0.896 | 2.088 | |
| Total ($M) | 2.506 | 0.535 | 1.849 | 4.889 | |
| Total | Salaries ($M) | 4.329 | 1.293 | 2.848 | 8.470 |
| O&M ($M) | 2.974 | 0.624 | 2.933 | 6.530 | |
| Total ($M) | 7.303 | 1.916 | 5.780 | 15.0 | |
Although Improved Climate Change Scenarios is a four-year program, funds were requested for only the last three years. As shown in Table 1, no funds were requested as part of the CAA Adaptation Theme for the Program's first year of implementation in 2007‑2008. During this time, funds from the Climate Change Interim Strategy (CCIS) were to cover program activities which would then be funded through the Adaptation Theme in subsequent years. However, a series of confounding factors created financial pressures that affected the Program's ability to deliver its commitments on time:
As a result of these circumstances, ASTD could not deliver on all of its CCCma and AIRS commitments. (Refer to Section 4.2.2 on Implementation of the Program for fuller discussion of impacts.)
The Adaptation Theme Logic Model was developed as part of the planning phase of the Adaptation Theme evaluation. Extensive consultations were held with all programs involved in the Adaptation Theme in order to ensure that all participating departments agree that the resulting thematic logic model best represents all programs within the theme and makes the appropriate connections to CAA-level outcomes. (Refer to Annex 1 for Adaptation Theme Logic Model.)
The program-level logic model for the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program is based on this theme-level logic model and was also developed as part of the planning phase of the Adaptation Theme evaluation. At the outset of the evaluation, further refinements were made to this logic model in agreement with the Program to ensure program-level activities, outputs and outcomes are accurately presented while still maintaining the connections to the thematic and CAA levels.
The following logic model in Figure 1 provides a visual display of program activities, outputs and outcomes for the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program.
Figure 1: Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program Level Logic Model
[2] These themes are led by Environment Canada (EC), Health Canada (HC), Transport Canada (TC) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), in partnership with Inuit and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the National Research Council (NRC) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).
[3] Lemmen, D.S, Warren, F. and J., Lacroix (2008); Synthesis in From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007, edited by D.S. Lemmen, F.J. Warren, J. Lacroix and E. Bush; Government of Canada, Ottawa, ON. P.4.
[4] In addition to the Improved Climate Change Scenarios Program, the other programs under the Adaptation Theme include: Assist Northerners in Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and Opportunities – Climate Change (INAC), National Air Quality and Health Index (NAQHI) and Forecast Program (EC and HC), Climate Change and Health Adaptation in Northern and Inuit Communities (HC), Innovative Risk Management Tool (NRCan), Regional Adaptation Action Partnerships (NRCan) and Climate and Infectious Disease Alert and Response System to Protect the Health of Canadians (HC and PHAC).
[5] Lemmen, D.S., Warren, F.J. and J. Lacroix (2008): Synthesis: in From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007, edited by D.S. Lemmen, F.J. Warren, J. Lacroix and E. Bush; Government of Canada, Ottawa, ON p.1-20.
[6] Although climate change scenarios use global climate models in its projections, AIRS uses multiple global climate models from other countries, not only the Canadian global climate model, to improve the robustness of its estimates.
[7] Global climate models can focus on oceanic or atmospheric circulation, for example, or they can be "coupled" to link these separate processes together for a more comprehensive representation of climate change projections. These coupled models, however, are extremely complex and difficult to interpret, and are still being developed.
[8] The CCCma has already developed the first Canadian global climate model, called the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM1). Program funding was intended to facilitate the development and testing of the second Canadian global model, Can ESM2.
[9] Other countries, such as Japan, Germany, and the United States, have also developed their own global models based on their own climate data.
[10] An existing regional climate model is run by the Ouranos consortium in Quebec in collaboration with the CCCma.
[11] The nodes of the CCCSN include the Ontario node at the University of Toronto, the Quebec node at McGill University (also connected to Ouranos), the Prairie node at the University of Regina, the Arctic node at Yukon College in Whitehorse, the Pacific-Yukon node at the University of British Columbia and the Atlantic node at the University of Prince Edward Island. The Ontario node is the primary site for network development and administration and houses the main server for the CCCSN website.
[12] Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. (2006) Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to the House of Commons. Chapter 2: Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change.
[13] The Improved Climate Change Scenarios program is implemented across the country within various Environment Canada regional offices as well as within several research facilities. While the director of the CRD operates out of Environment Canada's regional office at the Downsview facility in Toronto, program officers in CCCma and AIRS are located across Canada. The majority of CCCma officers are situated at the University of Victoria; however, a few CCCma staff members are located in Montreal (at the Ouranos research centre and the Environment Canada Dorval office) and in Toronto's Downsview facility. The majority of AIRS officers are situated in the Downsview facility with a few positions in Montreal (at the Dorval office, McGill University and l'Université de Québec à Montréal), at the University of Toronto and at York University.
[14] These senior management committees include: the Deputy Minister Committee, the Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) Steering Committee, the Director General Theme Leads Coordinating Committee (DGTLCC) and the Director General Management Committees (DGMC) for each Theme.
[15] The first chair of the Adaptation Theme DGMC was the DG of ASTD at Environment Canada. In 2009-10, the DG of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Directorate at NRCan became chair.
[16] The 30% estimate for 2008-09 does not include AIRS because AIRS was not part of CRD at this time. Information for AIRS alone was not available.
[17] In response, the Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate (ASTD) transferred funds from other activities within the directorate as an interim solution to offset these budget shortfalls. ASTD also transferred O&M funding from among other ASTD programs to provide sufficient A-Base O&M for climate modelling activities.