Regional climate change adaptation planning in Canada: Actors and their articulation

Abstract

Climate change governance presents challenges and most of the responsibility for it is offloaded to local governments often ill-equipped to deal with it. In Canada, where climate extremes are on the rise, regional adaptation governance structures have emerged as an avenue for more efficient adaptation. Governance at this scale has the potential to mutualize expertise and means, to involve local population, and favour a vertical integration of the adaptation process. From selected examples of regional collaboration on climate change adaptation, in this short viewpoint paper, we identify some factors favouring such initiatives. The presence of “boundary organizations” such as research centres or non-governmental organizations that can act as catalysts, is a predictor in all our cases and has been proposed in literature before. Funding opportunities can of course offer a strong incentive for various actors to get together. Other factors such as geographical or cultural particularities can shape communities’ response to the stress of climate change. More research should be led into understanding these factors and translate them into policies favouring the emergence of regional adaptation instances, especially in rural coastal zones, in Canada.