We Spoke to a Climate Change Expert about Flooding in Canadian Cities

Flooding in Toronto. Photos by Justin Friesen.

On Monday July 8th a record rainfall of over 100mm hit Toronto. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the average amount of rain expected for the entire month of July. Flooding hit the city hard as 300,000 residents went without power and many people ended up with basements that now double as swimming pools. All of this came on the heels of a significantly larger flood in Calgary that forced many residents to evacuate their homes and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

In Toronto, expensive cars were lost, our mayor hid in his idling SUV to stay cool, and GO Train commuters needed to be rescued by a raft. While much of the city waited for their power to return, conversations about climate change, specifically if the storm apocalypse we were all experiencing was caused by it, was a popular topic of discussion. While climate scientists have been telling us that hurricanes are going to get stronger and more frequent, Canada's larger cities have been complacent at best—given that extreme weather has always been something that doesn't happen to Canada's big cities. But is that changing?

If climate change is the culprit of our recent influx of extreme weather, does that mean we should just accept that floods and large, extended blackouts are going to be part of our lives from now on? Hopefully not, right? Especially if you’re one of those people who are now learning that most insurance doesn't cover flood damage—unless you were “lucky” enough to have sewage water destroy your basement.

Instead of merely speculating on what terrifying fate Canada might be facing, I sat down with Franz Hartmann, the executive director of Toronto Environmental Alliance. He holds a PhD in environmental politics, so he knows what he’s talking about. We met to discuss climate change and its effects on our cities. Unfortunately, I ended up leaving the conversation even more terrified than before.

VICE: Climate change is being blamed for extreme weather—primarily hurricanes—and a lot of climate scientists have been warning that they'll become more common and more extreme. With the flooding in Calgary and the record rainfall in Toronto, would you say we are feeling the effects of climate change now?
Franz Hartmann:Yes. As weather people say, it's very difficult to say that a particular event is caused by climate change, but if you look at weather patterns over the last ten years what we see in Canada especially, and here in Toronto in particular, is a dramatic increase in severe weather events in comparison to previous years. What happened on Monday is unprecedented in Toronto's history—we got more rainfall in twenty-four hours than has ever been recorded. It is very difficult not to conclude that this is an example of climate change's effect, and for whatever reason they conclude this is not an effect of climate change we know for a fact that this is what it will look like in the future.

You have been quoted as saying that the crumbling Gardiner Expressway in Toronto will seem like a pothole in comparison to the full effects of climate change—what type of weather changes does climate change have in store for us?
There was a report that was presented to a committee of city of Toronto councillors back in January. It was developed by a consulting firm, and essentially they came up with a new model that specifically looked at what Toronto's weather and climate will be like by 2040.

They compared what the model predicted to what happened between 2000 and 2009, and the two things that really struck me when I read this report is one, severe rain events and downpours. Between 2000 and 2009 a severe event, on average, resulted in 66mm of rain. They predicted that by 2040 that a severe event would lead to 160mm of rain and Monday's event was 124mm. So, what we saw on Monday is three quarters as bad as it will on a regular basis by 2040. That's very frightening because our infrastructure was undermined by [Monday’s flooding].

The other key prediction was that the number of hot days would dramatically increase. For example, between 2000 and 2009 the average number of days where the temperature, with humidex, was 40 degrees Celsius or more was ten. They’re saying that the number will go up to forty days per year. So imagine almost a month and a half of a summer that will be spent with temperatures of 40 degrees or more.

And if our power is being knocked out by floods, we won't have air conditioning to relieve that.
Exactly. Imagine a major flood happening where we get 160mm of rain in twenty-four hours and then imagine that happens right after two to four days of really hot weather—and the electricity system just goes down. It will create utter chaos in the city, one of the only reasons the city survived the flood that happened on Monday is because we had power, we had power for pumps, we had power for emergency vehicles, and for communications and so forth. If you have a city-wide power outage, that all of a sudden changes everything. That's when you have to start being concerned about deaths.

What can cities do to better prepare for scenarios like this?
Well, the city of Toronto actually published a study back in 2008 called “Ahead of the Storm” that outlines the steps the city should take immediately, and over the long term, to get ready for climate change. That includes not just preparing or adapting the city for it, but also mitigation, things that can help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions today so that whenever climate change does hit us it's not as severe. This report was developed, some of the things were implemented, and staff were assigned to make things happen. Then in the last couple years, because of budget cutbacks, the number of staff that are working on this has been reduced. The amount of money that's been invested in helping us prepare for climate change has been reduced. So we're actually slowing down exactly when we should be speeding up on actions to prepare Toronto for climate change.

Mayor Ford said that he felt the city’s response to the emergency situation on Monday was satisfactory, and called for a complete review of how the city handles situations of this nature. What do you think the review will find?
I hope it finds that city staff and public sector workers did the best they could under very difficult circumstances. The cutbacks that have taken place in the last few years in Toronto—not just at the municipal, but provincial and federal levels as well—have severely strained the ability of public servants to do what they need to do. I think there's another piece of the puzzle, and I was a bit disappointed that the Mayor did not mention this in his press conference. It's not just about emergency services being able to respond to these events, it's about what all levels of government can do to help prepare the city, and not just Toronto but cities across the country, so that when these severe weather events happen (be it floods like in Calgary and Toronto or power outages because of high temperatures) that we have the infrastructure in place to withstand those bad storms.

That discussion is not taking place, in fact that sort of discussion has been wholly missing in the last couple of years at city hall. We need to prepare our cities ahead of time as well as make sure our emergency services are in shape. To put it differently, we do have to be able to respond. But we also have to start thinking about preventative measures.

Sure sounds like it. Thanks, Franz.

Follow Ian on Twitter: @iancborsuk

Previously:

I Woke Up and Calgary Was Flooded