David Lapp, FEC, P.Eng. Practice Lead, Engineering and Public Policy, traveled to Whitehorse, YT, to represent Engineers Canada at the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Adaptation Platform Plenary Meeting in October.
The semi-annual plenary is the coordinating body for NRCan’s Adaptation Platform, a system of 11 working groups that engages in work around climate change adaptation and advises the NRCan Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation program.
Membership includes Engineers Canada, federal and provincial officials engaged in climate change adaptation, as well as a number of non-government organizations including practitioners, industry associations and the scientific community.
The meeting outcomes included:
- Sharing the latest developments, including new products, and identifying further innovative ways to promote uptake, including the developmentof impact stories.. Several have been written by NRCan about how Engineers Canada’s Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee Protocol (PIEVC) has been used.
- Promoting awareness and uptake of products and reports through the Adaptation Library, available at www.adaptationlibrary.ca.
- Learning about the Pan-Territorial Adaptation Partnership and its work, as well as its issues and challenges.
- Understanding the challenges of responding to long-term climate risks in the context of near-term priorities, using the mining sector as an example.
- Identifying collaborative work in new areas, which include addressing impacts on Canada from climate impacts taking place abroad and the need for cross-sectoral integrated regional analysis.
NRCan also announced that the National Symposium on Climate Change Adaptation will be held in Ottawa from April 12 to 14, 2016. A call for abstracts for individual presentations is due by November 30, 2015. Further information is available at www.adaptationcanada2016.ca .
